


the difference between shooting stars & satellites

by singmyheart



Series: he makes my heart a cinemascope screen [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Begging, Dirty Talk, Explicit Consent, F/M, Hotel Sex, Kneeling, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Power Dynamics, Praise Kink, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Tension, Teacher-Student Relationship, not exactly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-02 13:17:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10219184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: She wants to see if he'll take the bait, give her some indication that she hasn't just gotten in her head and blown this all out of proportion, twisted all this - whatever it is - into something it's not. This frisson ofsomething, crackling tension like the hour before a thunderstorm, this weight in her stomach. The way she'd caught his gaze lingering on her earlier.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know we all know why we're here, but just to be safe: this is set beginning the summer after Pippa’s high school graduation and she is of age. everything is consensual but there's a definite power dynamic here that's very much what makes the relationship tick and will probably not get addressed in any constructive way.
> 
> I'll tag/warn for specifics as they come up. there's no porn in this chapter, sorry.

 

 

The hot weather won't die for maybe another six weeks at best. End of August and summer isn't about to go without a fight; stifling humidity, sudden unpredictable storms. Pippa has to keep reminding herself that the feeling of a new chapter about to start is baseless now. Nothing ahead of her, no deadlines looming. It's strange, both scary and liberating. She couldn't be happier to leave high school behind, but she does feel like she's about to be shoved into the real world blinking and stumbling, unsupervised and unprepared. On reflection, she decides that this is probably not an uncommon feeling.

She likes work. It's tiring and kind of stressful but mostly good, and she's good at it, or getting there. At the very least it keeps her busy. Today's been one of those days that just seems to drag no matter what she does, not enough customers to occupy her for more than a few minutes at a time. Everything that needs stocking and organizing and cleaning has been stocked and organized and cleaned twice over and she's still got an hour and a half left in her shift. She's just contemplating asking Tommy to cook for her so she doesn't have to do it when she gets home when she hears her name, in tones of pleasant surprise. “Pippa?”

And she looks up to see - oh. “Oh, hi, Mr. Miranda.”

“I thought that was you,” he says, cheerfully, leans his elbows on the counter. “I didn't know you worked here - new development, I assume?”

“Yeah, just since graduation.”

“That explains it,” he says, nodding, “I've been on vacation.” She allows herself one quick once-over: he certainly looks like he's been on vacation, deeply tanned since she'd seen him last. His hair’s a little longer, sunglasses tucked in the front of his shirt. There's something else, too; he's less tired, maybe. Seeing him outside of the school hallways is kind of strange, like he shouldn't be allowed to just pop up elsewhere in her life without warning like this.

“Well, welcome back,” she says and he beams.

She pulls him a latte and he stuffs a ten in her tip jar, and then parks himself at a table with his laptop, giant headphones on, and doesn't look up until she has to kick him out so they can close. “I come in here to write all the time,” he says, “so I'm sure I'll see you soon.”

“Looking forward to it,” she says and he laughs and bids her good night.

Tommy offers to drive her home but she decides to walk; it's nice enough outside, won't be dark for hours yet. She likes spending time by herself when she can, a quiet few minutes with her music on and nothing in particular on her mind. Well - for a while, anyway; she finds herself chewing on the conversation from earlier.

Once she's home, lights on and music up loud to fill the empty house, she can't resist; curls up in bed with her laptop and after a little digging manages to find his Facebook. Flirts with sending him a friend request but she's not really sure if that's okay, settles for clicking through his photos instead. He's only got his profile photos set to public and there aren't many: him with an older guy who must be his dad, they look so much alike. One of him caught off-guard and laughing, not looking at the camera. His hair's short in the older ones, they're only from a year or two back but he looks years younger. She's never met anyone else named Lin-Manuel and wonders idly what made his parents pick it. After a while, she starts to feel a little weird, invasive, hating how easy the internet makes it to do this kind of thing. Rolls her eyes at herself and closes the tab.

 

*

 

As it turns out, he hadn't been kidding about coming in all the time; Pippa's only there one or two shifts a week but he's there whenever she is. They get to chatting now and again when it's not too busy - she explains that she's just trying to scrape a little money together before college next year, and he tells her he'd spent six weeks in Puerto Rico this summer visiting family and working on what might, eventually, be a novel. He's still Mr. Miranda in her head, but he tells her once, conspiratorial, “you know, I'm not your teacher anymore. You can call me Lin, if you want.”

“Right,” she says, and, “Lin,” and he beams at her.

So she settles into a routine, with work. She doesn't have anything to compare him to but Tommy’s a good dude to work for, she's decided; he's funny in a sly kind of way and he's present but he doesn't hover. She likes her coworkers, likes that she can walk into the kitchen to find Javi baking in the mornings with the weirdest music playing, that there's no dress code, that sometimes Jasmine and Anthony come in to say hi.

She likes Lin, too. Likes that his order changes every time; she's taken to guessing what he's in the mood for and lately she's right like seventy percent of the time, or he lets her be. She likes the little pieces of his life he offers her; he's maybe a little more reticent than she is, but she gets things out of him too - he loves old-school (to her) hip-hop, he plays piano (“not well, admittedly”). She likes that he always looks kind of impressed when she catches his references, that he laughs with his whole body.

It's nothing, just a crush. She’d been nursing it for a while, but it hadn't been a problem before; he was her teacher, after all.  It had pretty much died over the summer, with the knowledge that she was only going to see him rarely from now on, if ever. Now, as the weeks slide into autumn - well. It's still not a problem, exactly, though it's certainly resurfaced now that she sees him all the time. Whenever she catches herself daydreaming she imagines Jasmine, rolling her eyes and telling her to get a grip, and that kind of helps.

School having started back up, she's hoping to just forget about it, tuck it into a back corner of her brain somewhere, but if anything seeing him less often just makes it worse. She gives in to the temptation to stalk his Instagram once and it's about what she expects, a few familiar faces (Mr. Jackson and Mr. Lacamoire make appearances more than once), food, the odd group selfie in one of a few bars it seems he's a regular at. There's one from the other day; he's on the sidewalk outside the cafe holding the coffee she'd just made him, the toes of his beat-up ancient-looking Nikes in the bottom of the frame. The caption is just the latte emoji and the hundred emoji.

 

*

 

It's weeks before she sees him for long enough to actually get to chat. He's at his usual corner table, scrawling in one of a stack of coffee-stained spiral notebooks. Headphones on, the big noise-cancelling kind, so she tries not to scare him. It doesn't work; he jumps, startled, puts a hand to his chest and laughs, tugs the headphones off. “Jesus. Hello there.”

“Shit, sorry,” she says, kind of laughing.

“Warn a guy.” He shakes his head but he's still smiling. Hands her his dishes when she gestures for them and their fingers brush. “How’ve you been? I feel like I haven't been here in a year, I've been missing those lattes of yours.”

“I'm good,” she muses, “busy, you know. I picked up a bunch of extra shifts this week so I'm basically living here.”

“I know how that is,” he agrees. “Good for you, though.” He manages to make it actually sound sincere instead of condescending.

“What about you, what are you working on?” she asks curiously, failing to make anything out from a glance at his notebooks. His handwriting is awful, small and cramped; _I think too fast,_ he'd told her once.

“That's classified information,” he says, faux-grave - that nettles a little bit, which is stupid, it's none of her business. “Although, cards on the table, it's not so much ‘working on’ as it is, like, staring at the page waiting for my brain to come up with things. My _process._ It's all very tortured.”

“Of course,” she says, giggling. “Well, don't let me distract you.”

“Not at all,” he promises, and she gets out of his way.

 

*

 

It's been an awful day, one of those one-thing-after-another kind of days, and all Pippa’s wanted to do for hours is go home. She's just left work when it starts to rain, escalates quickly into pouring. At least it's warm, she thinks miserably, and trudges on, sneakers squelching.

A vaguely familiar-looking car slows down next to her and her impulse is to panic for a second, but - oh, it's Lin; he leans over to open the passenger door for her. “Need a lift?”

“Oh, thank god,” she says, sounding so profoundly relieved that he laughs. “Thanks, I was just thinking, yes, this is exactly how I wanted to end my Friday.”

“No problem,” he says easily. “You headed home?”

“Yeah - left up here, it's not far.” He waits for her to put her seatbelt on, she notices. Quiet for a few minutes save her murmured directions. He's got the AC cranked in opposition to the unseasonable heat and it raises goosebumps on her wet arms. The car’s not new, a little cluttered, his ratty messenger bag on the floor at her feet.

“Rough day, huh?” Lin ventures.

“Just long. The other girl who was supposed to be on my shift just didn't show, and the fridge is leaking again because it _is_ a day that ends in Y, and my till didn't balance right, and - just. Yeah. One of those days.” She sighs and then wishes she hadn't, aware that she's bitching. “Anyway. Whatever.” Leans over uninvited and turns the radio up, listening for a second. “Jill Scott? Right?”

“Good catch,” he says, approving. She doesn't mention that she's been listening to every band he's mentioned in passing for the last two months.

All too soon they're in her driveway, the house dark and empty beyond. He looks like he's about to say something but before he gets the chance some brazen spirit is taking over Pippa’s body and she's asking, “You want to come in?”

Lin hesitates. “Are your parents home?”

“Nah. Mom's gone for the weekend, I'm fending for myself.” It comes out more casually than she feels. “C’mon, I'll make you some tea.”

She ducks into her room to change into dry clothes, wrings out her soaking hair and exchanges jeans for sweats. Shucks off her bra, picks up a dry one - and then drops it, pulls just her t-shirt on instead. When she comes back into the kitchen he definitely notices and she notices him noticing, and the curl of heat in her belly at that is delicious.

They have tea and talk about nothing in particular, books, movies, and it's not awkward like she might have expected it to be. It's a while before she thinks to glance at the clock, surprised to discover that nearly an hour has passed since they got in. “I should head out, I think,” Lin says finally, “before this weather gets any worse.” The rain hasn't let up at all; that's a fair enough reason to go, or excuse. He gets up from the table to put his mug in the sink; she's sitting on the counter, knocking one bare foot idly against the cupboards, tamps down the spark when his arm brushes hers.

“Thanks for the ride,” she says and means it. “I owe you one.” That's a stupid thing to say but she wants to see if he'll take the bait, give her some indication that she hasn't just gotten in her head and blown this all out of proportion, twisted all this - whatever it is - into something it's not. This frisson of _something,_ crackling tension like the hour before a thunderstorm, this weight in her stomach. The way she'd caught his gaze lingering on her earlier.

“You don't - owe me anything,” he says, too quickly. “You've been keeping me in caffeine for weeks, you've never seen me without it - trust me, we're square. More than.” He's rambling, a little.

“Okay, we're square, then,” she agrees, still more confidently than she feels. Lin's hand twitches on the countertop when she covers it with hers but he doesn't move away.

“Pippa,” he says, very quietly.

"Did you ever think about me?" she asks, soft, hardly daring to believe the words coming out of her mouth. Hops down from the counter to stand in front of him and he steps back but not far, not far enough; she can feel his body heat. He's warm, solid and firm for all that she's trembling. She reaches up and touches his chest, just lightly, just above the collar of his damp t-shirt.  
  
"I can't... I couldn't let myself - see you that way. It wasn't right, it's not - Christ, you don't -" And he stops, abrupt. She's never seen him at a loss for words before. Won't meet her eyes.

“It's okay,” she murmurs. And it is, she _wants_ him here, doesn't he get that?

Lin laughs, a little hysterically. Doesn't look like he thinks it's okay. “I shouldn't be here.”

“Then why are you,” and it's not a question, not really. That reckless feeling crests in her again; she curls a hand around the back of his neck and tugs him down a fraction, closer to her.

“My best guess is that I'm having some kind of episode - fever dream - out-of-body experience, maybe -”

“You talk too much, you know that?” she whispers. Her knees are weak; she's sure he can tell her hands are shaking.

“I've been told. Look, just - tell me to leave,” he says in a rush, a shaky exhale against her mouth. “Tell me to go.”

“No.” They're so close now that their lips brush as she says it. Lin makes a wounded noise, like it's being torn out of his chest, like it hurts, and then he's kissing her.

Pippa's kissed boys before, but not like this; Lin kisses like he's trying to crawl inside her skin, like he's fixing to make her come with nothing more than this, teeth and tongue and his hands solid on her back, clutching, warmth bleeding through the thin cotton of her shirt. He picks her up, arm around her waist, and she has a wild disorienting moment before he sets her down on the edge of the counter, and - oh, that's perfect; she hooks both legs around his slim hips to draw him closer, still closer. One of his hands comes up to tangle in her wet hair, cradle the back of her head in a shockingly tender gesture, at odds with his teeth in her lip, his endless devouring kiss. She's never felt like this in her life, rash and wanting and _wanted;_ he's broken her open, pulled it out of her. She wonders hazily what else he could get from her, what else she'd give him if he'd only ask. Before she can think about it she unhooks his hand from her hip and drags it up to her chest, covers it with her own to encourage, reassure him; the weight of his palm and the rasp of fabric over her nipple makes her shudder and she gasps his name, _fuck, Lin -_ he is so warm and she's on fire, burning up and _here_ and alive.

But - no - he's pulling away, disentangles his limbs from hers and steps back. She catches herself leaning forward a moment, still chasing his mouth, but then he's out of arm’s reach. He's panting, again not meeting her eyes when he says, “No, we - can't do this, I need to go -”

“Don't,” she says, hating the plaintive note in her voice. “I wanted - I want you to -”

“No,” Lin says, not loudly but firm, and she could cry. He glances up, eyes searching hers for a long moment. “I'll - see you around, Pippa.” She can't get the words out, can't unlock her throat in time to protest before he's gone. The door slams behind him and the rain pounds the windows and it doesn't let up for a while.

She manages not to cry. Washes both their mugs just for something to do with her hands, and then she notices that all the burners have the black charred remains of food under them, and, well. She sets about giving the entire kitchen a once-over in the hope of distracting herself but it doesn't work; even clearing out the drain can't make her forget the hot slide of his tongue alongside hers, even scrubbing down the countertops can't erase the feeling of his hand buried in her hair. By the time she's done the room is spotless and she's aching and exhausted; at least she'll sleep well tonight.

She's mulling it over and over and after endless circles it clicks, what he'd said: not _I can't_ or _you can't,_ but _we can't do this._

 

_*_

 

Lin's not at the cafe during her next shift, or the one after that. That's just as well; she's not sure she wants to see him, either. All the frustration, the hurt and confused wanting she'd let loose in those few minutes has mostly transmuted into embarrassment. Whatever, she tells herself, she'd kissed someone she shouldn't have and now he's never going to talk to her again and she can forget it ever happened. She hopes wherever he's going now the coffee’s not as good.

It's weird, the need to keep a secret, this thing she won't tell her mom or Jasmine - she doesn't really actively keep things from either of them. But this, she knows, isn't something she can expect anyone else to understand, so - it stays between her and Lin. That's fine.

She winds up getting called in once to cover for Carleigh, on an afternoon shift, at the last minute. Tommy’s looking tired by the time she gets there, which is not great; he's never a dick about it but it's hard to ignore when he's not in a good mood.

She doesn't get the chance to take her break until the latter half of the shift and she's this close to tearing her hair out. Pours herself a coffee and heads for a table, ready more than anything to just sit down for ten minutes - and runs smack into Lin, who's coming out of the bathroom, not paying attention. He catches her arm to stop her falling flat on her ass but there's no saving the coffee; the mug hits the floor and shatters, because of course it does.

“Alright?” comes Tommy’s voice from the kitchen.

“Fine,” Pippa calls back, “no bloodshed, just making a mess.”

“Fuck, sorry,” Lin's saying and before she knows it he's crouching to pick up the broken china.

“I've got it, really,” she insists, completely mortified. Of _fucking_ course.

He won't hear it, though, and she focuses on carefully gathering up the mug shards and not on the fact that they're close enough to touch. No sooner have they picked up the last of the pieces than he hisses out a quiet _fuck_ and winces, and she catches a tiny flash of red before he sticks his thumb in his mouth.

So that's how she spends most of her break, in the men’s room cleaning him up. It's a shallow cut, but it's long, and she feels so bad that she'd insisted, fairly dragged him in here. He's perched half on the edge of the sink with the ancient first-aid kit open next to him and he's being subtle about it but still won't quite look her in the face. She can't help but feel a little satisfied at that; good, let him feel as awkward as she does.

“You're not usually here this time of day,” he says, blandly. Just making conversation.

“So you have - sorry,” she interrupts herself when he winces a little at the press of the alcohol swab. “You _have_ been avoiding me.”

“That's not true,” he says in a way that means it absolutely is.

“You kiss me and I don't see you for weeks. What am I supposed to think?” She's aiming for cavalier and for a second isn't sure she's managed it, but he looks hunted.

“I… regret that,” he says carefully, sighs. Glances nervously at the door. “I apologize, it won't happen again - should never have happened. I crossed a line, it was incredibly inappropriate -”

“At least pretend you mean that,” she interrupts, with all the scathing disbelief her eighteen years can muster.

“Pippa, for fuck’s sake,” Lin spits and that surprises her, the force of it, the sudden and real frustration there. He gentles a little at the look on her face. “There are boundaries here, you know that.”

“Of course I know that,” she says, nettled, “all I'm saying is that I want -” but he's shaking his head, cutting her off.

“No, no. _Want_ is irrelevant, what you or I _want_ doesn't even enter into it -”

“Would you let me finish?” Lin shuts up and waits. Pippa regrets it instantly, has to force the words out around the thick knot of embarrassment suddenly forming in her throat, acutely aware that she's not half as brave as she thinks she is. “I - wanted that,” she gets out, haltingly. Forces herself to look at his face. “I wanted you to. Want you to, present tense. For whatever it's worth.”

Lin sighs, again, deep. Runs his free hand through his hair. He lets her finish patching him up, once or twice looks like he's going to say something and thinks better of it. Her patch job is kind of clumsy, just two band-aids stuck over the ragged cut, but it'll do. His palm is warm, indent in the index finger from his pen, inkstain along the side. A little coffee splashed on one shoe. She lets her fingertips brush over the delicate inside of his wrist before she gives him his hand back and his own fingers twitch, like he might touch her.

She wants very badly to kiss him, right here in the men’s room on her break. She can see it, pictures going up on her toes, leaning into him again and covering his mouth with hers. That kiss, the way he'd sunk his teeth into her lip, followed it with the teasing brush of his tongue - it's such a vivid sense memory that for a second she almost, almost gives into it. _God,_ she needs to sit on her hands or something.

“Thanks,” Lin says, amiably enough. “Now, I've distracted you long enough, I think. Back to work, you.”

 

*

 

He starts coming in again, but she doesn't feel better, exactly. She doesn't feel like they've settled anything, although Lin clearly does. If anything he's a little cooler with her, like they're barely more than strangers. It's kind of infuriating and kind of upsetting but if that's how he wants it to be there's not a whole lot she can do about it.

The worst moments are the ones when that cool facade slips and she makes him laugh or whatever, because they only serve to remind her it's a front. If she really believed he didn't want her, if she really believed that he believed what he'd said, she might be able to let it go. It's driving her up the wall, that she can't get a moment alone with him to make him look at her and admit it. She almost sends him a Facebook message, once, but looking at it all written out feels bold and clumsy and like crossing a line. Putting a name to it in black and white, breathing life into something she should let slip away like fragments of a dream on waking up.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here be monsters (porn). depiction ≠ endorsement, etc., we're all adults here.

 

 

 

“I'm just saying,” Pippa's saying, “that if you come out of _Fight Club_ thinking, man, that Tyler Durden, he's got some good ideas -” Lin looks over at her, eyebrows raised, but he lets her finish. “- that's not just a different interpretation, or whatever, that's an _incorrect reading._ You know?”

They're in Lin's car, again, because it's raining, again. Tommy had offered to drive her home come the end of her shift, and she'd been poised to take him up on it, until Lin had said, “I can take you.” A little abrupt, maybe; she hadn't quite been able to pin down his expression.

Tommy had looked from one to the other, her behind the counter and Lin in front of it. “That alright, Pip?”

She'd chewed on it long enough to think something petty about Lin apparently deciding he can trust himself around her again, and she'd accepted. “Yeah, just - yeah. Thanks, though.”

“Sure,” Tommy had said, bid her goodnight, and she followed Lin to the car.

This conversation has gone all over the place in only a few minutes and she's rambling now, she knows - but Lin's letting her, so. “Or, like - I watched _500 Days of Summer_ with Jas, right, and she got _so mad_ at the end, at Summer? When literally every other character in that movie is telling the guy he's got the wrong end of the stick, when Summer tells him like fifty times she doesn't want to be his girlfriend - it's not like he's just this sweet guy who got his heart broken, he's a dick. How do you come away from that with the total opposite impression of what you're shown?”

She stops for breath and Lin says, “So where's the line, then?”

“Hm?”

“Whose responsibility is it, I mean,” Lin clarifies. “Is it on the audience, for engaging incorrectly - or not thinking critically, or what have you - or the creator, for not spelling it out?” The question is mild and she might be imagining it but it sounds like there's a hint of a challenge in it too.

She hadn't considered that, truth be told, but doesn't want to say so. Doesn't want to just admit _I don't know,_ so she chews on it for a moment. “It's a two-way street, isn't it?” she muses. “A conversation, ideally. It's easy to like, write satire and claim people just don't get it if it doesn't go over well, but - I don't know that creators should have to do all the work, either. Expecting to be spoon-fed is kind of insulting to both parties, don't you think?”

“I'm not disagreeing with you,” Lin says and the tone is so familiar: the one he'd used when someone in class went off on a tangent; he'd pose a countering question to whatever they were talking about and usually they'd freeze up, or else apologize. Pippa certainly had, on occasion, but he'd say something like, _no, it's a good point, it's just not germane to this particular discussion. Another time, maybe._ To have that kind of attention on her now, just her, undiluted by a roomful of classmates - she doesn't quite know what to do with it. It's a little thrilling. New. Especially after these strange, uncertain few weeks of distance, Lin clearly trying to pull back and clearly not succeeding. Maybe this can be their new normal, then: teetering on the edge of something without going over. It still hurts in a dull aching kind of way but it's better than nothing.

She only realizes she's home when the car stops. Doesn't know how this keeps happening, how he makes it so easy to open up that she loses track of time. “Well. Thanks,” she says, awkwardly; it feels inadequate, an abrupt end to the evening unbefitting of the conversation they've been having.

“You're welcome. Have a good night, yeah?” Damn him for sounding so normal and unselfconscious.

“You, too,” she says, and turns toward him a little. Confusion flickers across his features for a split second, like he doesn't get why she's not leaving, and she leans over and just - touches his knee, lightly. Makes the decision in an instant, watches him tense in an instant. She's caught, strung up between the desire to do something reckless and the knowledge that she has to be careful if she doesn't want this to end in tears. She can draw it out of him if she's delicate about it, tug until he unravels. “You could have let Tommy drive me home,” she points out, like commenting on the weather. She can give him an out, if he really wants one.

“I'm not having this discussion with you,” he says, flat, and it's so impersonal, borderline condescending. Makes the back of her neck prickle.

His thigh twitches under her palm as she slides her hand just a little higher, just a fraction. “You didn't have to do this,” she goes on, quietly. “Not now, or last time - you could’ve let me walk, could've started going anywhere else for coffee, could've never spoken to me again -”

“You're right.” He's looking down at her hand and Pippa has the distinct impression she's got him cornered. “Is that what you want me to say? You're right, okay, I could have and I didn't. It - fuck, it doesn't matter.” He sighs and she waits, biting her tongue. “You need to just - go, go inside and I'm gonna drive away and we're gonna forget any of this ever -”

“Or you could kiss me again.”

Fuck careful.

That makes him look at her. Pippa's aware in this long moment of every detail, of the rain hammering down outside the car, the hum of the radio not quite loud enough to make anything out. Lin's damp hair coming loose around his face and his eyes black in the half-dark of the streetlights. Her heart is pounding. “That's what you want?” Lin asks, low.

 _Yes yes yes_ splashed neon in her brain as she moves forward as much as she dares, closes the space between them, cautiously; Lin doesn't stop her but he doesn't meet her halfway. So, still tentative, she kisses him. Lingers long enough to register that he's not kissing back, that despite her trying to telegraph _touch me_ he's not kissing back. Mortification twists in her gut - message received - and she retreats, hoping fervently for the earth to open up and swallow her whole. But when she goes to lift her hand from his leg Lin grabs her wrist. “Yes,” she says, belatedly, tracks how his gaze drops to her mouth. “That’s what I want.”

Lin kisses her. Maddeningly gentle as if she's the one who's scared here, as if he hasn't been giving her mixed signals left and right. She's more than a little annoyed at that but it doesn't matter right now, nothing does but chasing his mouth, chasing more. Immediately she wants to throw caution to the wind, itching to abandon whatever shred of self-restraint she might still have. But he _knows,_ he knows and he won't let her. Fingers still light on the delicate inside of her wrist, draws back an inch when she tries to deepen the kiss, once and then again. “You’re trouble,” he murmurs finally, tips his forehead against hers.

“Thank you,” she says, instead of something clever, and he laughs, surprising in the quiet.

There's a moment between the first kiss and the second that she knows she could stop this. Could, and probably should. Fuck should, and fuck careful, she's so _sick_ of should and careful, of being the nice girl who never does anything stupid or selfish. Never does anything without weighing her options, just because she wants to. She wants to, now, she _wants,_ wants badly to fall off this cliff’s edge they've been so close to and drag him down with her.

The second kiss is slower, deeper, filthier, and she can feel that nervous tension in Lin’s body transmuting into something else. There’s a smoldering heat under every inch of her skin and it’s building, through the grabbing and the shifting and the pulling closer; the clatter when they both disentangle from the seatbelts strikes her as very loud. Lin’s tongue is in her mouth and both his hands are in her hair and it’s not _enough._ She clambers gracelessly over the center console and into his lap, and this is it, exactly what she's after, his arm around her waist, to feel the groan in his chest when she kisses him again, his mouth warm and open under hers. Too _much_ between their bodies and she wrestles his jacket open, pushes both hands under the hem of his damp t-shirt to skim her nails in aimless patterns over his back, the soft thatch of hair on his chest; he sighs when her thumbs brush over his nipples and she wonders wildly if he can tell she has no fucking idea what she’s doing. Only knows she wants more, wants skin, wants him. And he's finally here with her in freefall, stopped holding himself back. Licks into her open mouth with a hunger that definitely matches her own, catches her lip in his teeth and _pulls_ just a little, just enough for her to feel it. Like he's trying to draw her in, like she's not already doing whatever she can to get closer. The noise that falls out of her is one she's never heard herself make, almost a whine, and it makes him grin against her. His arm at her waist a little tighter to encourage the way her hips are starting to rock forward, which she hadn't known she was doing until right this second.

She’s not sure what she’s expecting when she reaches for his belt but it’s obvious even to her that he’s hard and that’s thrilling, that it’s her affecting him like this. Hoping vaguely to just hurtle past any awkwardness she doesn't make a meal of it, belt, jeans and a wet patch on his boxers and then the warm hard length of his cock in her hand. Wraps her fingers around him and strokes, after a moment or two settles into an easy enough rhythm. Lin tips her chin up to catch her mouth again, kisses her messy, breathes out a _yeah_ when she tightens her grip a little, palms the head. “That’s all you,” he murmurs, low and liquid, “what you do to me, you feel that? Do you even know?” She has no idea how to respond to that so she doesn’t try, but it’s - she could never have imagined she’d like this so much, _want_ anyone this much. Didn't know how it felt to want before. He’s pushing up into her grip now, breathing serrated. Experimentally, she mouths at his neck, his jaw, the rasp of his beard against her lips strange but not in a bad way. He actually whines a little when she hits the spot just underneath his ear, grazes her teeth over his pulse point, sucks gently on the skin there and then harder at the broken sound he makes. “Fuck, just - twist your wrist a little,” gasps Lin and she does and he comes hot all over her hand, shuddering, clutching hard at her back.

“Gross,” she mutters and wipes her wet hand on her skirt; it’s already drying tacky and, ugh, on the edge of her sleeve too. Thinks he hadn’t heard but then he chuckles. She’s breathing just as hard as he is and there’s another long, loaded moment before he kisses her again, hard. She’s about ready to vibrate out of her skin with this directionless, consuming want - she’s going to lose her fucking mind if he doesn’t touch her.

He noses at her jaw, his mouth tracing the same path across her neck as she’d just done, these wet, indulgent kisses. She digs her nails into the back of his neck to spur him on and he moves lower, determined and not giving her time to wrap her head around it, across her collarbones, down her chest. Half in a dream, it feels like, she watches him tug down the top of her dress, as best he can with the tangle of her own jacket to contend with; rapt and feverish she watches him lick and suck and bite at the skin he uncovers until she’s a wreck, a trembling mess. She can’t find the words for what she wants, can’t get them in the right order in her head. What she wants, desperately, is to come, for him to make her come, and she opens her mouth to say so but embarrassment stops her short, crawls hot and sharp down her spine. Reminding her again that she’s not as brave as she thinks she is.

Thank fucking god, though, he seems to get it, thumbs at her nipple with one hand and runs the other up her thigh with a confidence that somehow just winds her up even more. Nothing hesitant in the way he’s touching her now. Just grazes her cunt, over her tights and underwear, and even that tiny contact has her pushing forward, seeking more.

“You want me to?” he murmurs. He’s kind of just - petting her now, which feels surreal and incredible and immensely frustrating.

“Yes,” she gasps and it's ridiculous; it's not like that fact is in any doubt, but she'd tell him whatever he wanted to hear right now. She’s been asked that before, but those few fumbling times with boys had left her cold, not even on the same planet as what she’s feeling in this moment. She’s rocking her hips almost mindlessly against his hand, asking with and without the words as she repeats it, “Yes - yeah, I want you to, please.” Can't bear the thought of waiting a second longer and doesn't care if she looks desperate, she is; reaches down with both hands and tears a hole in her tights, the fabric giving way to her nails easily, so easily.

“Jesus,” Lin mutters, a little amused but mostly reverent. She could scream when he finally does touch her properly, brushes past stray threads and pulls her panties aside to get at her clit, a light and steady pressure. She’s soaking; the slick hot slide of his fingertips is perfect and it pulls this reedy, wanton sound out of her throat. The  _please_ ringing in her ears. 

“Yeah, yeah, come on,” is all he has to say to that, low and knowing. Slips a finger easily just inside her, _fuck -_ she can hear how wet she is, her own ragged breathing. Lets her eyes drift closed. It’s not quite comfortable like this, wedged as she is between his body and the steering wheel with her clothes all twisted, but she’s never cared less about anything in her life. “You're so fucking tight,” he breathes, and it's a compliment and it's obscene and it probably shouldn't turn her inside out like it does, this stream of filth and praise intertwined. “You feel so fucking good, you're so _wet,_ ” on and on like this; she's shaking, riding his hand and he pushes on her clit almost too hard and she _moans,_ sharp, shocking in the stillness. He leans into her a little harder, a little faster - she tucks her face into his neck to try and smother the noises she’s making, these tiny wanton moans -

“No, no,” Lin’s saying, “come on, now, lemme hear it - I wanna see your face, c’mon -”

She doesn’t even think of disobeying, just does it, resurfaces so he can watch her face because he wants to, he asked -

\- and it rips through her, devastating, shocking in its force. No way to cover up the cry that tears out of her, nowhere to hide - nothing to do but cling to him and ride it out, the endless twitching wave, almost painful -

Finally, finally, it doesn’t fade so much as stop suddenly, leaving her quivering and unbearably sensitive; her leg jerks when Lin’s hand withdraws. Takes a minute or two just to breathe, curl into him and pant against his neck, calm the frantic thud of her heart. Leans back and he kisses her once more, relatively chaste.

It’s awkward, suddenly; she hates that it’s awkward but it is. Like a switch flipped. Tension sitting thick between them as she extricates herself from the driver’s seat to get back on the passenger side. Both of them tucking themselves back into clothing, wiping her lipstick off their faces. She checks herself in the overhead mirror, half expecting to have it written across her forehead, but she looks fine. Normal. “Well,” she says, like nothing’s happened, like she doesn't have ruined tights sticking obscenely to the slick insides of her thighs. “Thanks again. G’night.”

“Night.” He watches her gather up her bag from the floor, and she crosses the space between them again to kiss him carefully on the cheek. The rain’s stopped; the walk to her door feels miles long. She doesn’t look back, but she doesn’t hear him drive off until her key is in the lock.

 

*

 

So she's messing around with Lin. Present tense. There's one other time after that, another hot rushed encounter in his parked car, every inch as searing and terrifying as the first. But he's working and so is she, so despite wanting more, despite thinking about it _all_ the fucking time, they've now gone weeks without.

(Lin fights with himself, she can see him doing it, but he keeps texting her back, so.)

That's mostly what they've been doing lately, texting, and it's a little bizarre, to have these innocuous conversations with him about how her day is going and then switch gears to… other things.

 _Thinking about you,_ she texts him once. Feels kind of bad for being distracted given that she's with Jas and Anthony but Lin's out of town for the weekend and she can't get him out of her head. Not that she's trying very hard. The text is just vague enough that she can play it off if he's not thinking what she is; she's kind of hoping he's thinking what she is. A few minutes pass, long enough for her to panic that he's clammed up, like he does sometimes, gets kind of cagey when she thinks everything's fine, so she takes a chance, adds, _want you._ Sure she's blushing, startles so badly when the phone buzzes with his reply a second later that Anthony looks at her funny.

“Nothing,” she says hastily before he can ask, and he raises his eyebrows but lets it go, resumes bickering good-naturedly with Jasmine about - something, Pippa's sufficiently preoccupied.

_yeah? tell me how_

Tell him how? What the hell. She starts typing and stops, once, twice. _kind of want to suck you off,_ is what she ends up with, and it looks so stark like that, in black and white, but it's just the truth so she sends it.

 _woof,_ Lin texts back (dork). _you ever done that before?_

_No but i’ve been thinking about it and i want to for you. will you tell me how?_

_jesus h christ you cant just SAY stuff like that_

_???_

_heart attack_

That makes her laugh, calms the momentary flutter of panic in her chest. “What?” Jasmine says, amused. Pippa tries again to say _nothing_ but Jasmine catches something on her face. “Are you talking to a guy? Do you have a guy I don't know about?”

Sheer panic for a split second. “No, it's two guys, actually -”

“Oh, come on. Who is it? Someone from school?”

“It's nobody -”

“It's not that dude you work with, is it? The old one?”

“What, Javi? Jas, ew, he's like forty, _and_ he's gay -”

“So you're his beard -”

“Jasmine, oh my god,” Pippa almost snaps, not at all commensurate with Jasmine’s joking tone. “Would you drop it.”

Jasmine looks a little hurt, Anthony uncomfortable, and Pippa instantly feels bad, but she also really fucking wants to stop talking about this. “Fine.” They turn back to their movie and it's palpably awkward for a minute, but when Pippa squeezes her hand briefly in apology she squeezes back, so.

She manages to ignore Lin's next few texts for a whole five minutes before she caves. _For the record i want to do that for you too_

_want to get you in my bed one of these days, take my time with you, if you want_

_it's better that way, no obligations, no distractions, just you and me_

 

_I want that too_

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

So they've been texting. It's a poor substitute, obviously, but it's - hot, too. If she's being honest with herself. That she can be at work and know he's thinking about her, that he's taking time out of his day to detail the _ways_ in which he's thinking about her. It's an onslaught, a dam broken, all the sweeter for all this time he's spent trying to keep her at arm's length.

She makes some noise about her weekend, lets him know that she's finally got a Friday and a Saturday off. Not sure what she's angling for, just knows she wants to see him - but he does her one better and invites her over to his place. _I'll cook you dinner,_ is what his text says, specifically. _spend the night if you want, if you can swing it._

So they have a night and a day, an embarrassment of riches. Pippa tells her mom she's staying at Jasmine’s - an unfamiliar twinge of guilt at the lie, at how easily it comes - and leaves home in the brisk early evening to catch the bus to Lin's. It takes her past the cafe, past the school; it's not a long ride but her stomach is in knots.

He’d said he was going to buzz her up but as it turns out he’s waiting for her in the lobby instead: looking the same as he ever does, jeans, that grey sweater he loves so much (it occurs to her that he’s excited, too). She kisses him the minute they get in his door, hungry as ever, and he responds in kind but pulls back too soon, laces his fingers with hers and brings her hands up to his mouth to warm them up, kiss her knuckles, one and then the other. “We’ve got time,” he reminds her, “all night, in fact.”

“This is true,” she agrees, not quite able to stop the stupid grin threatening to spread over her face.

The dinner Lin makes for them is simple but excellent, a heavy slow-cooker soup that’s filling but not too much so, soft French bread and honey butter. He likes to cook, he tells her, when he has the energy, which is less often than he likes. She has the thought that he looks _at home,_ here, like this. Which is stupid, it's his home, but there's something just - right about it, about his mismatched dishes and the way he sings to himself while he cleans up afterward, dishtowel hanging from his back pocket.

Over dessert - tea and a huge lemon tart they’re sharing - he says, “Y’know, I remember you told me something about your college plans, but I don't think I ever asked. D’you know what you'd want to study?”

“Social work, maybe?” It comes out like a question; she realizes she hasn't told anyone that other than her mom. “I'm not sure yet. I'd have to leave town to do that and I don't really want to leave my mom. It's always just been the two of us, my dad died when I was little, so - it's okay,” she adds hastily, to forestall any possible awkwardness. “I barely remember him, honestly, I just. I worry about her, that's all.”

“You think she’d be okay, with you gone?” Lin asks carefully. She likes that he asks, doesn’t tell, doesn’t assume anything like other people sometimes do.

“I mean, yeah,” she says slowly, contemplating. “She wants me to do what I want, she’s really encouraging and everything, it’s not that, she’s just - stoic, you know? She’d deal, but she might not tell me if she was having a really hard time.”

“Stiff-upper-lip kind of thing,” Lin says, nodding.

“Exactly. I'm like her, I think, that way.” Lin smiles at her and the moment hangs heavy, and suddenly she finds she's eager to change the subject, move on. “So, _anyway,_ ” she says, “enough about me. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I feel like I don’t know stuff about you.”

“What kind of stuff?” Lin asks, chuckling. “What do you want to know?”

She rests her chin in her hand, considers him. Thinks _everything_ but says instead, “Like… I don't know. Ever been married?”

“Married,” Lin echoes. Smiling but not laughing at her, he takes the question seriously. “No, but - almost.”

“Really?” For some reason she hadn’t been expecting that.

“Well.” He rocks a hand back and forth. “I was with somebody for a long time - all through high school and into college - and, like. If we’d stuck it out, that’s where things were headed, but - we were long-distance, had other things going on… she dodged my calls for like two weeks and then came home for a weekend, and.” He shrugs. “I was kind of blindsided. Six years of my life, over, just like that.”

She’s not sure what to say. Her heart aches for him, sudden and fierce; she can’t imagine that. “Are you still in touch?”

“Here and there. We’re Facebook friends, and I get her fuckin’ - Christmas newsletter. But that’s it, really. She’s married now. Beautiful kid.” He leans forward across the table and mirrors her, chin in hand, mock serious. “And you? Ever been married?”

“Yes. You wouldn't _believe_ what I've been through. A convent girl… a runaway marriage…”

“What?” Lin's got this tiny furrow in his brow, not getting it, and she has to beat down the weird desire to kiss it.

“Oh my god, have you never seen _Chicago_? The Catherine Zeta-Jones one?”

“No. Am I remiss?”

“Yes,” she insists, and just because she can, comes around the table and drops into his lap. She's hoping - he gets a little weird about this, now and again. He has no problem texting, sending her long and beautifully worded and explicit messages about - whatever - but affection makes him a little uncomfortable, sometimes. It's kind of confusing, that he can be doing this and still clearly fighting with himself over it - but she won't think about it now. He catches her easily, an arm around her waist. “It's on Netflix, I think, can we watch it? Clearly, I have things to teach you.”

“Whatever you want,” Lin says, and he looks so absurdly fond that she _has_ to kiss him.

He ends up dozing off on the couch before too long, his head in her lap; she strokes his hair and tries not to move too much. His place is nice, she decides: it looks lived-in, a little messy. Books absolutely everywhere, a Basquiat print she recognizes on the wall above the armchair. Eventually her leg falls asleep, though, so she hits pause on Roxie telling them murder’s an art and prods him awake, gently. “Hey. Let's go to bed?”

Lin makes a noise that might vaguely indicate agreement, sits up. “Time is it?”

“Barely ten. Old man.”

“You're lucky, there are nights I don't even make it through Jeopardy.”

They shuffle around each other in his bathroom to go through their respective evening rituals (he makes fun of her skincare routine) and a few minutes later crawl into bed, which is big and old and really comfortable. Books everywhere in here, too, not just in the bookcase but in piles on the dresser, the bedside table, the floor. His bedspread patterned in loose, delicate stripes. Lin next to her in his _Portal_ t-shirt, glasses in place of his usual contacts. “I'm glad we're doing this,” she tells him, wonders if she'll ever stop feeling so clumsy about saying stuff like that, being honest with him.

“Me too,” he says, kisses the top of her head, and she can feel him smiling.

 

Pippa jolts awake far too early - that’s what she gets for shift work; her internal clock is all fucked up. After half an hour or so of tossing and turning gets up, leaves Lin in bed. He sleeps like he’s dead and she’s pleased that even the sight of him messy-haired and snoring slightly makes her heart flutter.

His little balcony looks out onto a courtyard rather than the street, which is kind of nice, even like this, winter approaching. It’s not as cold as she might have expected; she stays out there for a while, plenty warm wrapped in the blanket she’d snagged off the back of the couch. Below her, a little gray cat sniffs around in the grass and then darts off, suddenly, spooked by the sound of Lin’s arrival, the door closing behind him.

He pads softly over to her in his sock feet, steals the blanket for a second to cover them both in it and tugs her back against his chest. “Morning, angel.”

“Morning,” she murmurs, revelling in his arms tucked around her, the feeling of his lips in her hair.

“Why are you up?”

“Just couldn’t sleep. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Not at all,” he assures her, drops a kiss on her neck and then stays there when she lets out a pleased little hum and tilts her chin up, encouraging. Good morning, indeed. It’s all she can do not to melt at the trail of lazy, lingering kisses he dispenses from her ear down to the crook of her shoulder and back up, the brush of his tongue.

He presses a little closer, a solid wall of heat at her back, takes both of her hands in his and puts them on the railing in front of her. It’s gentle, a suggestion, feeling her out. He’ll do things like this, occasionally, and she thinks maybe it should bother her, just how much it _doesn’t_ bother her; the near-consuming desire to just do what he wants, what he tells her.

Right now, though, she wants to hear him say it, so she pushes as much as she dares - reaches up to grip the back of his neck, manages for all of a second to sink her fingers into his hair before he takes her wrist. Not hard, but a little more firmly, and he guides it back down, waits for her to take hold of the cold wrought-iron rail again. “Keep that to yourself,” he murmurs in her ear, a gentle reprimand.

“If I don’t?” God, she already sounds breathless, so fucking needy. There’s no bite to it - she wouldn’t dream of disobeying, just the thought of him positioning her as he likes is thrilling - she’s just curious as to what he’ll say.

“Oh, I’ll think of something,” he promises, amused, slips a hand deliberately down the front of her sweats.

“Right here?” she says, like she’s not already a wreck from the briefest, teasing touches, like she’s not pushing back against him just to feel his cock take notice. She tries and fails to hide a grin, a little minnow of satisfaction.

“It’s ass o’clock in the morning on a Saturday,” Lin points out, “and there’s no one in the apartment across the way, no one’s gonna see.” Pippa’s not entirely convinced but she’s also rapidly losing the ability to care with his fingers on her clit like that. His hand withdraws and she’s about to protest, but he’s only sliding his fingers into his own mouth, a wet and obscene sound next to her ear, and then he’s back, that perfect steady pressure on her clit, slow circles. “No one’s gonna see you like this,” he continues, low; the brush of his lips on her earlobe elicits a shiver. “No one’s gonna see your face… hear the sounds you make…” Like he knows her, like they've been doing this for years instead of weeks.

And on cue she bites off a frustrated cry when he pulls just away from her cunt and leaves her pushing forward into nothing, a sound too loud in the still morning air. She’s going to _kill_ him; her fingers flex on the railing almost involuntarily. She itches to touch him but doesn’t dare because he said; instead she tries unsuccessfully to bite down on the noise as he slips his fingers into her and presses his thumb to her clit. _Fuck,_ how is he so good at this? Works her up and up right to the edge again, sweet slow burn - and pulls out. Not so much as a warning. She turns around and kisses him, shaky and wanting and messy. “Come _on,_ ” she whines against his throat, quietly, and he takes her back inside.

They fall back into his unmade bed in a heap. She can’t keep still, pulls him down on top of her and relishes his warm, solid weight, his knees trapping her hips. She could melt right into the mattress, caught, surrounded, strung up by his every searing, claiming kiss. He drags his hot mouth and clever fingers down her neck, collarbones, chest, ribs, cataloguing every inch, every spot that makes her gasp and twitch. Not rushing but with definite purpose. She wrestles out of her shirt and Lin hooks his fingers in the waistband of her sweats and she realizes he’s never seen her naked, not like this; the most they’ve bared for each other has been parts, snatches of skin in his darkened car.

Somehow she only understands exactly what he’s after when he’s mouthing at the hollows of her hips, the warmth of his palms on her thighs bleeding through the fabric. “Is this okay?” he asks her, low, as if to demonstrate noses gently at her cunt. “I’ve wanted to do this forever…”

“Yes,” she says, immediately. “Yeah, I want you to - yeah.” She’s stuck on _forever,_ how long that might be.

And he's pulling off first her sweats and then her underwear, soaked through, with reverent, patient hands. Kisses and grazes teeth and strokes over her hips, thighs, breathes her in, for ages, everywhere but where she needs it, until she’s pushing up mindlessly toward the touch. Hooks her legs over his shoulders and she feels wide open, exposed and horribly, deliciously vulnerable even before he carefully spreads her with a hand and - _oh._ It’s nothing like his fingers at all, delicate and warm and wet, and blindingly, _shockingly_ good. She lets herself look down at him and he looks intent, hungry - but. She can’t quite get out of her head, wondering if he could possibly be enjoying this as much as it looks like he is, thinking about how Jas can hardly ever get Anthony to do it, wondering what she must taste like -

Lin looks up at her, mouth shining wet, rests his chin on her hip. “You not into this?”

“What? No, I totally am, I’m just - thinking too much, I guess.”

“Normally I wouldn’t tell you this,” he says and he’s grinning, “but stop thinking, maybe.” That makes her laugh, puts her at ease; he’s here, he wants her here, wants this. She reaches down with a trembling hand to stroke his hair, tuck it back from his face. Lin watches her while he redoubles his efforts, his eyes dark and hungry and gorgeous and his tongue insistent on her clit. Smiles against her when she moans and tightens her grip compulsively in his hair and she gets it. This is what he wants, to make her lose it - not that he has to try very hard. “Good?” he murmurs, almost a hum against her clit, a little hoarse, a little smug. She gasps out something that might be a yes, she’s so close she can taste it - and he backs off. Starts again with these slow, teasing strokes at her clit, tip of his tongue a little finger on the button, works her right up again and she won’t be able to stand it if he stops now, thinks she might scream.

Instead, recklessly, she tells him, “God, fuck, I used to daydream about this, you know.” Her own voice surprises her, low and honeyed. Lin looks confused and then kind of tense but he doesn't stop and she goes on, now that she's dug up the courage to say so might as well just keep going: “I used to just hang back after class to talk to you, I used to think about this, wishing you knew - I'd go home and -”

And Lin groans against her, pained. “Oh my god, Pip…”

“Don't stop?” she asks - pleads, really. Lin presses his forehead to her thigh for a second and takes a breath but goes back to it, lips and tongue and his hands wrapped around her thighs. She's feverishly hot all over and mortified, afraid of what he can get her to admit with no fucking pushing whatsoever, vague rose-coloured daydreaming before she'd had any idea, any inkling what this could be like. Staying after class just to talk to him about nothing, anything, just for a scrap of his attention. Well, she's definitely got all of his attention now. She's close again, _right_ there and before she can dig herself in any deeper she just grits out a “please.” Doesn't come out low and confident like she wants but reedy, breathless.

“Please what, doll?” Lin asks, quiet and knowing, and it cuts right through the haze. He’s never - this isn’t - on the edge of disbelief, she looks down at him and he’s watching her, patient. She doesn’t know if it’s a challenge or an encouragement or both or neither but she’s _aching,_ desperate, sure in her bones he won’t give this to her unless she asks, so -

“Please,” and she fixes her eyes on the off-white of his ceiling so she doesn’t have to look at him. “Please, can I come?” For a second she’s afraid he’s really going to make her beg (which isn’t, exactly, a deterrent) - and his fingertips brush her entrance, a promise, a tease, and the dam breaks - “ _please,_ Lin, I’m so close, fuck, I wanna come, please let me -”

“Oh, good girl,” he breathes rapturously somewhere underneath all this, lowers his mouth to her again and finally, _finally_ she comes, maybe as hard as she’s ever done it. Grasping at the sheets underneath her and shaking, pushing up into the hard suck of his lips on her clit, around his fingers in her. Arched clear of the mattress, no breath left in her lungs to form a word and Lin stays with her, chases a second and maybe even a third climax and lets her down easy, doesn’t stop all at once but keeps at her gently while the waves recede until at last she’s wrung out, too sensitive to let him continue. He wipes his mouth and kisses her hip and comes back up the bed to lie next to her, run a hand through her sweat-damp hair.

“Holy shit,” she mutters, when she can talk again.

“You taste so fucking good,” he tells her, conversational, and she thinks maybe she should think that’s weird, but can’t muster the energy to make fun of him. “Sweet, almost…” And he kisses her cheek, presumably so as not to gross her out, but she turns enough to catch his mouth, kiss him properly. Her taste on his lips and tongue is heavy and inescapable, tangible evidence of what they’ve just done; the thought sends a thrill down her spine.

“I wanna do that for you. Can I?”

“If you want to, absolutely,” he says, tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Don’t feel like you have -”

“Cool,” she interrupts, brightly, shoves him over onto his back. He laughs at her pushing but he lets her, lets her straddle his hips and kiss him, mark the same determined path of kisses and gentle exploratory bites down his torso as he’d just done to her. Pushing his shirt out of her way until he huffs and sits up enough to shrug it off, settles back down. She discovers he’s not wearing anything underneath his own well-worn sweats and then there he is, all laid out bare for her to stare at and kiss and touch as she likes.

She’s kind of intimidated, truth be told, settling down between his legs to take his cock in her hand. He’s rock-hard and leaking and he sighs when she palms the head like he likes; god, to think he’s this worked up just from that, it’s - not unflattering, she supposes. He laughs, suddenly, and she looks up at him, self-consciousness twisting in her stomach. “What?”

“Sorry,” he says, strokes his thumb over her cheek, “I don’t mean to laugh at you, it’s - you just - look so determined. It’s cute, honestly.”

Pippa doesn’t really know what to say to that, so instead she just takes him more firmly in hand and leans down to take the head of his cock in her mouth. It doesn’t taste how she expects, mostly just skin and a little musk, a little salt. It’s kind of overwhelming; she doesn’t feel like she even took that much but her mouth is definitely full, a warm, heavy weight. She can breathe, though, and when she cranes a little awkwardly to watch him he looks enraptured, which is more than enough to keep her right where she is.

She sinks down an inch further, slowly, flexing her tongue against the underside just to see what he’ll do. “That’s good,” he mutters, sounding fond, so she does it again and he breathes out a sigh. Cards a hand through her hair, not to pull or to direct, just to hold. Her mouth is watering as she takes him still further - kind of a lot, which hadn’t even occurred to her as a potential issue, and she wonders vaguely if he thinks it’s gross, if he likes it. The head of his cock just grazes her soft palate and it’s enough to startle her a little, spasm - but she decides in a split second not to back off. Stays there and fights the choke even as tears spring up in her eyes, even as he’s reaching for her shoulder, saying, “Hey, hey, alright?” She squeezes his hip hoping to reassure him and he says, “don’t hurt yourself,” quietly, strained. She starts bringing her hand up to meet her mouth in steady, careful strokes and the noise he makes at that makes her feel - powerful, in control. It’s an echo of what she’d felt the first time; that it’s her making him feel like this, her he wants and it lights her up in spite of the lingering anxiety about somehow fucking it up and what she must look like. His hips are shifting restlessly now, his fingers stroking through her hair a little less delicately. She can tell when he’s close by the way he loses his filter; almost has to strain to hear him telling her how good it feels, how fucking hot she looks, holy shit, angel, that’s so good, that’s perfect. Breathlessly but clearly he tells her, “I’m gonna come,” and she backs up to stroke him through it. She’s panting, thin string of saliva hanging obscenely between his cock and her mouth. He curls in on himself when he comes, a wrecked-sounding _fuck_ working its way from his throat.

“Well, fuck,” he says vehemently, to the ceiling. “Good morning.” Pippa bursts into giggles and curls up next to him, drags a finger through the mess of drying come on his belly. “You’re unreal,” he mumbles, turns his face into her shoulder and kisses it.

They end up not getting out of bed for a while.

 

Eventually, though, he takes her home; her mom’s car is in the driveway so he drops her down the block, as is their routine by now. Her mom’s in the kitchen when Pippa comes in, leans over her shoulder to kiss her cheek. “Hey.”

“Hi, love. How was your night, how’s Jas?”

“She’s good,” Pippa says, lightly; even that white lie makes her gut twist. “It smells fucking amazing in here, what is that? I’m starving.”

 

*

 

“Is it weird for me to tip you, now?” Lin stage-whispers over the counter. He doesn’t need to, there’s no one here, which just means she can lean forward and get a little more in his space than she would otherwise.

“Probably,” she whispers back, giggling even as he starts to look faintly stressed out at the brush of her fingertips over his wrist.

“In that case,” he says out the corner of his mouth like a guy in a gangster movie, or a bad impression of one, and drops a handful of change in her tip jar. “You didn’t see this, dig?”

She’s still smiling like an idiot when she heads back into the kitchen, which Javi points out, but at least he’s nice about it. “You look happy, kid.”

“You know? I kind of am.”

“Kind of?” Javi’s always quick with a smile, a grin wide enough to bring out the laugh lines around his eyes. She likes that about him, likes the thought of not trying to qualify or downplay it, trying to play it cool.

“No, I am,” she corrects herself, and he looks delighted.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 _you!! are distracting,_ Lin texts. Just that.

_I am incentivizing… back to work, you. more later._

Less than a minute ago Pippa had sent him a photo from the bathroom at work, the scarf she’s had to wear for the last couple of days pulled aside to show the dark, obvious bruise on her neck, her collarbone, just a peek of bra strap. Lin had put it there the other night in the course of a rushed, searing quickie in the back of his car, gotten her running her mouth about all the things she thinks about when they’re apart, things she’d want to try someday, what she’d let him do given the time (there’s not a lot she wouldn’t let him do, she’d thought wildly). A little thrill courses through her at the image of Lin pulling his phone out at school, not expecting - and then having to go about his day with this picture burning a hole in his pocket.

_can’t tell if thats a promise or a threat_

_wish we didn’t always have to rush,_ she texts back. 

_I know, me too, doll_

 

He’s about to have final exams and the end of semester to contend with so they manage to see each other even less, for a while, although they’re texting as much as ever. She thinks about that night at Lin’s place constantly, the nagging feeling of doing something they shouldn’t have been doing all but eclipsed by the luxury of taking time.

A repeat performance doesn’t seem to be on the horizon, but somewhere in that weird stretch of time between Christmas and New Year’s they manage to steal a few hours. Not a ton of time but better than nothing. End up at Lin’s, half-watching a movie on the couch, talking idly. “How was your Christmas?” she asks him, settles her legs a little more comfortably over his lap.

“It was good,” he muses, “loud, rum-soaked. The usual. Yours?”

“Pretty good. Quiet.” Her Christmases are never elaborate affairs and she likes that. Serene dinners with her grandparents mean she never has to deal with the stress of buying gifts for dozens of people and multiple parties and all that stuff like so many of her friends do. She’s gathered that Lin’s got a pretty big family, wonders if they’ve got the same love-hate relationship Jasmine does with hers. “Are you gonna go out for New Year’s?”

Lin pulls a face. “I’m too old for that. Lac - that’s Mr. Lacamoire to you, Alex - he usually has an open house kind of thing, so.” She waits to see if he'll go on, but he doesn't offer anything more than that, which - he does this, sometimes. She’s sure he doesn’t ever _lie_ to her but he’s not always expansive. It’s just enough to remind her how different they are, how he seems to have more going on in his life than she does. “Hey, I’ve got something for you.”

“Really?” She’s got a Christmas gift for him, too, but for whatever reason they hadn’t discussed it and she hadn’t wanted to let herself hope for one. She’s glad she’d thought to bring it with her.

“Yes, really,” Lin says, rolls his eyes, and disentangles their limbs long enough to head for the bedroom. Comes back with a small, square box.

“You first,” she declares, hands him the bag. In a soft crinkle of tissue paper he carefully pulls out the messenger bag she’d splurged on, scraped a little money away from her last couple of paycheques for it. Lin brushes his fingertips over the monogram, his initials stamped in gold on the deep brown leather, looks up at her with an expression she can’t quite place. “I just thought - if you like yours, you know, that’s fine, it’s just old, so -”

“Baby,” Lin says, fondly. “I love this, thank you.” He leans in to kiss her smiling, presses the box into her hand.

It turns out to be perfume in a little glass bottle, that when she sprays it lightly on her wrist proves to be kind of spicy, kind of earthy in exactly the way she likes. She wears patchouli sometimes, he must have noticed. “Thank you,” she says, oddly touched at the thought, and he’s still smiling when she kisses him again.

He’s still smiling half an hour or so later, too - he’d offered to drop her at work and, predictably, they’ve gotten distracted (maybe she’s developing some kind of Pavlovian response to being in his car). She’s got Lin’s hands in her hair and his hips pushing up against hers and she might actually be able to get off like this, fully clothed, but she’s gonna be late -

He takes her hand in his and drags it downward to palm the steadily growing hardness in his jeans. “Gonna take care of that for me? Hm?” It’s that tone that makes her want to devour him, and he catches her mouth again before she can answer, tightens his other hand in her hair to _just_ pull.

“I gotta go,” she protests, kind of laughing, “my shift starts in like six minutes -”

“I can do it in six minutes,” Lin says, grinning at her. His mouth is red and damp and she’s sorely tempted, moreso when he noses underneath her jaw to bite at her neck.

“Six minutes is not sex, Lin, six minutes is like, a grilled cheese,” she points out, and with a frankly Herculean effort pulls back, drops back into the passenger seat. She’s gotten used to giving herself a quick once-over in the visor mirror, runs a hand through her hair and adjusts her shirt, zips her jacket back up, wipes a little lipgloss off her face.

“Fine,” Lin sighs, all put-upon. “Go, be responsible. Guess I’m keeping myself warm tonight.”

She’s halfway out of the car and turns back, leans across the seat to fist a hand in his scarf and kiss him hard, brief and filthy, slip her tongue in his mouth. “Good,” she says brightly, “do that. Tell me about it later.”

He exhales a little shaky, smiling, and says, "I will."

 

*

 

“You’ve got something…”

Pippa’s curled up with a book, kind of engrossed, so it takes her a second to catch up when her mom brushes her hair back to get a look at her neck - at the new bruise there, not as bad as it had been yesterday but still pretty vivid. “Oh, that’s - it’s nothing, I swear -”

Her mom doesn’t look mad, though, just faintly amused. “Just - be smart about it, alright?”

“Of course, ma,” Pippa says after a moment, and manages to smile despite the embarrassed flush high on her cheeks.

  
*

 

Jasmine, it transpires, is fighting with Anthony again. Pippa’s trying to listen, she really is, but this happens like once a week and she’s got Lin texting her as usual, in a long string of increasingly creative filth, so she’s more than a little preoccupied -

“Pip? Hey.”

She starts, guiltily, looking up from her phone. “What? Sorry.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Jas points out, annoyed more than upset, but Pippa feels bad all the same. “C’mon, where have you been?”

“I’m right here, Jas.”

“No, I mean - you’re so distracted whenever I see you, now. You are dating someone, aren’t you?”

“No.” Well. It’s not exactly a lie. “You’re right, though, it’s just - work, and stuff. Sorry.” Jas looks unconvinced, so Pippa offers her milkshake as a conciliatory gesture, waggles her eyebrows. “So, hold on, back up - what did Oak say, then?”

Jasmine rolls her eyes but she takes the cup, and launches back into her story about Oak and Anthony and some party at someone’s sister’s house.

 

*

 

She doesn’t know when Lin’s place started feeling familiar to her. It’s not like she’s even spent that much time here, this is only the second occasion she’s spending the night, but somewhere in these always-brief snatches they've stolen over the last few months she’s learned where he keeps the mugs, that he has a pile of half-finished novels on his nightstand at any given time. They’re comfortable enough to be around each other and wrapped up in their respective things, it seems, or at least Lin is - Pippa can’t relax tonight, for whatever reason. Can’t focus on the book she’s trying to get through, keeps reading the same page over and over. “Hey,” she says finally. Lin’s grading essays and it takes him a second to look up. He hadn’t bothered to change after work and he looks adorably rumpled, button-down creased and his hair coming loose from its hasty ponytail. “Pay attention to me.”

“Sorry,” Lin says, “this won’t take much longer, I just -” She cuts him off with a kiss, brief, and he laughs but kisses her back. “Don’t you distract me,” he murmurs.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she assures him, grave, and then gets on her knees in front of him, so that’s a lie.

Lin’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Hang on, now, that is the very _definition_ of distracting -”

“Didn’t hear that, sorry - I’m not here -”

“Pip,” he says and he’s kind of smiling. “Seriously, I'm so fucking behind, I gotta get this done. Not that you don't make a _very_ compelling argument.” He stops her when she reaches for his belt, a hand light on her wrist. A beat, and even though he’s right and it’s not a big deal at all she can’t quite help the curl of embarrassment in her chest, and what's worse, can't seem to hide it from him. She hates sometimes that she's so transparent. “Not no,” Lin tells her, cups her jaw, strokes his thumb over her cheek, “just not right this second.” She goes to stand up, but he stops her doing that, too, his hand moving to her shoulder a little suddenly. Clears his throat. “Just - can you just, like. Stay there.”

What. “Okay,” she says, softly, and doesn’t move. Lin smiles at her, and then turns back to his essays.

She has no idea what he’s playing at, here: he shifts a little so she’s more comfortably between his knees but after a minute or two it’s clear that his attention is fully back on his work, like she’s not even there. Her face is burning with the absurdity of it, of kneeling here on his kitchen floor, only to be ignored. She watches him for a moment, brow knit, steady swell of his chest as he breathes, but he doesn't say anything further.  

Minutes pass. She has no idea how long, can’t see the clock from where she is. Can hear his watch ticking, the soft rustle of paper and scratch of his pen, the occasional sigh. Every time he moves, shifts in his chair or scratches the back of his neck, she wonders if this is it, if he’ll finally acknowledge her again, like he can hear her thoughts, which at the moment are just a constant loop of _look at me look at me look at me._ He doesn’t crack, though, and at some point she becomes aware that her restless inner monologue has started to quiet, slow down: her train of thought narrowed to Lin, his legs bracketing her. Her own knees are aching, protesting such prolonged contact with the tiled floor. Twenty minutes? Forty? Fuck, she has no idea. It doesn’t matter.

She could get up, she knows she could. Back out of whatever game he’s playing here. But she doesn’t, and she understands that the thing keeping her here on her knees is the same thing that makes her stammer out a plea when he tells her to ask nicely or trap her own wrist behind her back when he tells her not to touch. It’s something akin to the thing that had made her smile to see _Nicely done!_ in his untidy scrawl at the top of one of her papers - the same but different. Worlds away from a year ago, and the thought almost makes her laugh.

A couple of times she thinks she might break, can’t take another minute, but then he’ll reach for her, card a hand through her hair without looking down. It’s grounding, that touch, a comfort. She can’t tell if it’s a put-on, if he really is totally into his work, or if he’s driven to distraction and just better at hiding it than she is.

Finally, _finally,_ Lin drops his pen, looks down to meet her eye. “Oh, look at you,” he says, and his tone’s soft as it ever is but there’s heat in his eyes, slow-burning and unmistakable. Spreads his knees a fraction, reminding her why she'd gotten down there to begin with. Touches her lip just lightly, and she opens unthinkingly for the press of his fingers on her tongue.

 

*

 

She manages to drag Jasmine out to a movie. It’s good; Pippa really has missed her, feels like they hardly get to see each other these days (there’s a chance she feels a little guilty about this). It’s the tiny fifty-seat theatre that shows indies and documentaries and foreign-language movies, too, so it’s empty, more or less. Ten minutes before their movie is supposed to start and there’s no line, so she’s looking forward to getting to put her feet up and talk throughout if it’s boring.

The last showing is just letting out; Pippa’s looking at her phone, steps absent-mindedly out of the way of the small crowd on their way out, but then she hears - “Jasmine?”

“Mr. Miranda,” Jasmine says, sounding pleasantly surprised. “Hey.”

“Fancy meeting you here,” he says, easily enough. “Pippa, hi.”

It takes a second to kick her brain back into gear. “Uh, hi,” she says, after what seems like a long pause and probably isn’t.

Her ears are ringing a little bit, listening to Lin make small talk with Jas like it’s nothing, work, school, whatever. She doesn’t even know why it’s so fucking off-putting, just focusing on trying not to blurt out something insane, like she’s a normal person running into her former English teacher on a random Thursday night. Is her body language weird? Is she staring at him?

“Well,” Jasmine says, finally. “I think our movie’s gonna start, so.”

“Of course, I won’t hold you up,” Lin says, and he’s smiling like an actual human being. “Nice seeing you.”

“You, too.”

Jasmine looks at her, obviously waiting for her to chime in, but Pippa’s mouth is acting of its own accord, apparently. “I gotta pee,” she says, kind of abruptly. “Go ahead, though, why don’t you go find us seats?”

Jas gives her a look clearly meant to convey _okay, you fucking weirdo,_ but she waves and goes. With only a brief look around to ensure no one’s watching them Pippa heads for the bathroom, Lin close behind.

“It’s not that big a deal, Pip,” he’s saying, and then he gets a look at her face and kind of folds, takes her in his arms. “Are you freaking out a little bit right now?”

“Yes,” she says petulantly, into his chest, fingers the hem of his shirt. “I don’t keep stuff from her, like, ever.” She hesitates, trying to tread carefully: this, the secrecy, they don’t talk about this part. It’s just been a mutual understanding since day one and she doesn’t want to get too deep into it right now, doesn’t want to upset him. Even just having his arms around her is enough to calm her down by degrees, make her feel a little better, momentary panic starting to edge down into relief that Jasmine doesn’t suspect anything. “I don’t lie to her,” she repeats, “it’s just… kind of weird.”

“I know,” Lin murmurs. Of course he gets it, he’s here too.

She tilts up and kisses him to try and relax, comfort them both, ease out some of this burning agitation under her skin. Of course this backfires, rapidly and in the usual fashion, and she’s going up on her toes to curl a hand in his hair and deepen the kiss. And it’s stupid, they shouldn’t be doing this here, now, but she needs it, suddenly - needs him to remind her what’s worth keeping secrets for, thinks she might cry if he stops her now.

“We do not have time for this,” Lin mutters in the tone that means he’s losing the fight with himself, even as he’s walking her back into one of the stalls and closing the door.

When she finds Jasmine in the mostly-empty theatre a few minutes later, whispers, “sorry, line for the bathroom,” Jasmine doesn’t seem bothered.

 

*

 

Work is hell the next day. She’s jittery, excited, can’t focus - her mind is hours ahead, on the evening. Lin’s taking her away this weekend, has booked them a hotel room half an hour out of town where there’s definitely no chance of running into anyone they know. The prospect of two whole nights with him, uninterrupted by work or school or curfew, is thrilling; it almost outweighs the guilt at yet another necessary lie (she’d told her mom she’s staying at Jasmine’s and Jasmine she’s visiting her grandparents).

So she’s distracted, which she kind of hates. The second time she fucks up an order Tommy tells her to “get it together, would you,” eyebrows raised, but there’s no real heat in it and both plates are going to regulars anyway so it could be worse. He waves off her string of apologies. “Where’s your head, kid?”

“I just - have plans this weekend, that’s all. Sorry, I’m - I’ll keep my shit together, no worries.”

 

She ends up leaving only fifteen minutes or so after her shift is technically over, which is a small miracle. She’s climbing out of her skin as she heads home - just long enough to pack her bag and say hello and goodbye to her mom, and then she’s out the door and into Lin’s waiting car.

Despite rush-hour traffic slowed to a crawl the drive is pleasant enough; Lin's music library, set to shuffle, takes them from Run DMC to the Decemberists to weird harsh noise and piano concertos. Their conversation, too, bounces around, doesn't stay in one place too long. There's a lull after a bit, a quiet stretch, folksy guitar and the highway ahead of them. “So,” Lin says, in the way that means he's about to ask her something, breaking the reverie. “Where does your mom think you are, when you're with me?”

Pippa’s got her sock feet kicked up on the dash, shoes under the seat somewhere. Thrown off by the question, she glances down at her phone to buy a second to think. “Usually with Jas - that's where she thinks I am now, this weekend. Sometimes that I'm working.”

“And Jasmine?”

“I told her I'm at my grandparents’.” She looks over at him, checking for tension, trying to get a read on his mood. “Why?”

“Just wondering, I guess.” He shrugs, shakes it off. “Whatever, it doesn't matter. Forget I said anything.”

It's quiet for another minute or two, but not like it was. Something shifted. “Okay, so,” she says, eager to move on, get over this unease gathering in her stomach. “What's this place like? You said you've been before?”

“Yeah,” Lin says, seems relieved at the change of subject. “Yeah, years ago. It's cool, kind of a boutique thing. The restaurant's really good, and there's this great bookstore in town if you wanna go. Tomorrow, maybe, we can take a walk?”

“That sounds perfect,” she says, and it does.

He's right about the hotel, it's definitely a little left of center: high ceilings and creaky leather couches in the lobby, black-and-white tile floor. Their room is gorgeous too, cozy, warm lighting, just at a glance much nicer than any hotel she's stayed in before. When she drops her bag and starfishes out on the bed and presses her face to the pillows she gets a faceful of clean linen smell, devoid of the sterile, impersonal bleach scent she's used to from hotel sheets.

She flops over onto her back, looks at the ceiling. “This is nice,” she decides.

Lin hums an agreement and crawls over her, holds himself up on his elbows and kisses her lightly. “Are you hungry?”

“I'm starving,” she confesses, realizing she hasn't had anything to eat today, suddenly ravenous.

They end up ordering pizza and eating in bed (had hit on a mutual love of honey garlic chicken wings, so often unsatiated because no one else in the world likes them). They're halfway through a movie now and Pippa’s pretty sure she doesn't want to move ever again, which is only partially due to how much she'd eaten. She's dozing with her head on Lin's chest, and every so often he'll run a hand up and down her arm, absently. She's very comfortable. Eventually she lets her eyes slip closed, and drifts off.

 

She wakes suddenly, disoriented; it takes a second to make sense of where she is. The credits are rolling on the movie and it's dark out. A little bleary, she sits up, stretches, nudges Lin. “Hey. We fell asleep.”

Lin makes a discontented noise and rolls over, knuckles at his eyes. It's pretty adorable. “Mm. Time is it?”

“Too early for bed. Wanna go for a swim?”

“Can we? I think the pool’s closed…”

“So?” she says, and he laughs.

Breaking into the hotel pool is stupid for a couple of reasons, not least of which is that it's probably too cold out for it to be worth it. But once they climb over the low locked gate and actually get in the water it's kind of nice; it's heated. Lin dives in a surprisingly graceful move and surfaces in front of her in the shallow end, pushes his hair back from his face with both hands. The lights set in the pool walls cast him a little strangely, yellow and shadow.

He sweeps an appreciative look over her chest and shoulders above the water, hooks a finger in the strap of her bikini top. “I like this,” he tells her, the grin on his face absolutely feral. “This is so cute.”

“What is that look for? You've seen me more naked than this before,” she points out, reasonably, she thinks. Slings her arms around his neck and kisses him anyway, and they drift around for a while. It's nice, like this, the slide of her wet skin on his, even with goosebumps coming up in the evening air. Hooks her legs around his waist, feeling weightless, nips at his lip; he grins against her mouth and takes advantage of her distraction to hoist her easily over his shoulder. “Don't you fucking dare,” is all she gets out before he tosses her bodily into the deep end. She flails for a moment in the strange soft light and comes up spluttering, laughing. “You _motherfucker -_ ” She splashes him, entirely too loudly, and he's trying to tell her to be quiet, they'll get caught, but he's laughing too. Lets him take her in his arms again, push her soaking hair out of her eyes. “You're the worst,” she grumbles, put-upon.

“Yeah,” Lin agrees, and kisses her lightly, languidly, with a hand splayed over the small of her back, fingertips resting just above the curve of her ass. “You do what I asked?” he says, casually, and it takes a minute to get what he means.

(Yesterday: he'd pushed her right up against the wall in that bathroom despite his own protests. One hand up her skirt and when she couldn't hold back a moan he'd shushed her, settled the other over her mouth. Spilling filth into her ear: “You want someone to hear you, angel? Hear you beg me pretty?”

And she had begged, in some weird break with reality, pled with him to make her come, let her come, even without any hope of getting coherent sound past his palm. She couldn't even really move, with his body caging her in so tightly, his thigh between hers - hadn't stopped her from trying, wriggling a little just for the sake of feeling how thoroughly he'd had her pinned - and it was lightning, fire streaking along her insides. Trying desperately to rock down against his hand, get him inside her, _fuck, Lin, please -_ and he hadn't let her come. Stepped back, made her promise to wait til tonight. How he'd sounded so calm, when she could absolutely have died, she has no idea. When she'd agreed, he'd called her good and kissed her and left her there, weak-kneed, unsatisfied.)

It's not that she'd forgotten yesterday's encounter, far from it; it's just been percolating in the back of her mind all day. She's used to it, in a sense, just the low constant throb of wanting him whenever they're apart. It spikes back up now, though, with a vengeance.

“I did, yeah.” She'd thought about it last night, lying in bed, of course she had - she could've gotten off, easily, given herself the orgasm he'd so frustratingly denied her. It’s not like he'd have known. But she hadn't, and it's _so_ worth it for his tone of voice, the look he's wearing.

“Good,” he murmurs, just that. A burst of satisfaction at the praise mingles strangely with the returning rush of frustration when he tips her chin up to bring their mouths together again, kisses her slow, a deliberate attempt to wind her up (a successful one, at that). She presses a little closer, fingertips on his chest. “Let's go back upstairs, yeah?”

They catch a weird look from another couple in the elevator, given that they're dripping wet and shivering, wrapped in towels they'd taken from the room. Lin looks like he's trying really hard not to laugh, which leaves Pippa trying really hard not to laugh. They make it back to the room without incident, though, and collapse onto the bed in a damp, giggling heap. “Why did I let you talk me into that,” Lin says, in wonder.

“I didn't have to try very hard,” she points out.

“Details…” He waves a hand, kisses her with that same unhurried promise. She wants to push him some, see what he'll do - slides her fingers into his hair, bites at his lip like he likes. He's determined, though, keeps it slow and easy, smiling at her efforts. Firmly, he tugs her hand down and presses it flat to the bedspread, a tease and a warning.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be doing things that are... not this. come yell at me on tumble.


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

There it is again, in the morning: that disorienting feeling of unfamiliarity, of not recognizing her surroundings for a few seconds. But then Lin stirs in bed beside her and it all filters back in, chlorine scent, the pleasant satisfying ache in her calves. Pippa rolls over and fits herself under his arm, smiling against the bare skin of his chest when he mumbles _morning_ and it comes out sleepy and hoarse, sandpaper rasp.

“Morning,” she whispers back, and neither of them makes a move to get up. She watches him stumble into wakefulness, blink his eyes open and scrub a hand over his face. She'll never tell him this, but for all of a moment she gives in and imagines what it would be like to do this more often. Greet days with him beside her, and not stolen hours in a hotel where nobody knows them - but at his place, with its books and lived-in clutter and plants dying on the balcony because he always forgets about them. She'd cook him breakfast and stop feeling like the carriage would turn back into a pumpkin any minute, like she’s just hiding out with him while her real life waits outside his door. And then Lin sits up, yawns so widely his jaw cracks, and the moment’s passed.

“So, I was thinking,” he says, over breakfast (last night's pizza, eaten cold in bed). “We could go into town today - I'll take you to that bookstore, if you want, maybe have some lunch, see a movie? Sound good?”

“I'd love that,” she says, and he beams.

The town turns out to be a beautiful little tourist trap, narrow streets lined with antiques shops, coffee roasters, the kind of weird New-Agey occult stores where you can smell the incense from out on the sidewalk. It's chilly but bright, and they're both wind-chafed by the time they stop for lunch, in a restaurant the size of her bedroom. Windows fogged up, opaque. They share coffee and sandwiches and their knees are brushing under the tiny table and no one gives them a second glance.

When they get to the bookstore she can see immediately why Lin loves it. It looks exactly like the other shops in the neighborhood, welcoming them in, nothing glossy or impersonal about it. Dusty in just the right way, thick with the smell of old paper. Pippa gets the sense it's one of those places that's just built into the DNA of the town, like it grew here along with the trees. It's probably older than Lin. There's a little gray kitten on the counter, fast asleep; it wakes when she coos at it and bumps its nose against her palm. She takes a picture to send to Jasmine before she remembers she's not supposed to be here.

She's knee-deep in the poetry section when she realizes she's lost Lin, but then he comes wandering over from Memoirs & Biographies with two heavy paperbacks in hand, doubtless to join the stack of untouched reading he's got at home. “It's a sickness,” he explains, in response to her raised eyebrows. Tilts his head a little to read the spines on the shelf she's looking at, Frank O’Hara, Sylvia Plath. “You're a poetry person,” he observes, nodding at the volume she's just been paging through.

“Are you not?” she asks and he shrugs. “You're an English teacher, how do you not like poetry?”

“I don't hate it - I like Shakespeare fine, Keats. Just not my thing, I guess.”

She shakes her head, mock sad. “You're missing out. Like - listen,” and she reads from the open page, “I woke up this morning and said thank you. To the ceiling, the bedsheets, the mirror, the window. To whomever was listening - for the softly swaying hammock, the salt air, the clouds that rolled in while I wasn't watching, the sounds of someone starting a fire nearby. The smell of a man’s body, the sound of his sleepy baritone from within the chest I pressed my head against. The way his heart beat out of time with his quiet singing.” She looks up at him. “Isn't that gorgeous?”

“You are gorgeous,” Lin says, because he's a dork. “Poem’s not bad.” He drops a kiss on her forehead, tells her to get the book.

 

Dinner in the hotel’s restaurant that evening is excellent, like he'd said. Something about the low light and the intimate tangle of conversation around them catches her up in it again, without warning: the feeling that she wants to know everything about him. It washes over her, warm and sudden, and she says, “Tell me about your family?”

He takes it in stride, though he does look a little amused at her curiosity. “Well. My mom’s a psychologist. My dad’s a political consultant, he owns a firm. He came here from Puerto Rico when he was eighteen to go to school, taught himself English pretty much on his own.”

“That's ridiculous,” she says, admiringly. Can't imagine it, up and leaving the life she knows to start over, alone, somewhere she doesn't speak the language.

“I know. Got himself a job, married my mom like five minutes after they met, and hasn't slowed down since. I don't think he took a day off the first fifteen years of my life. You know, he wanted me to be a lawyer?”

“Really?” She has to laugh at the thought; it doesn't jive at all with the Lin she knows, scattered and earnest. “Teaching is kind of a far cry, isn't it?”

“No kidding. Honestly, when I started I didn't intend for it to be a full-time gig, I wanted to pay the bills and spend more time writing, but. I fell in love with it, I guess.” He shrugs, open palms. “And here we are.”

“What do your parents think?”

“You're curious tonight,” he observes, and then laughs at the look on her face, waves her off before she can apologize. “They're fine. Like, I can't complain to them about work without my dad bringing up the bar exam, you know, but. He's just opinionated. He's a tough bastard, my dad. If I can turn into half the guy he is I'll be happy. Guess it's a cliche for a reason.”  

“Lin?”

“Hm?” He drains the last of his beer, gives her his eyes over the rim of the pint glass.

“How old are you?”

Lin opens his mouth to speak, hesitates for all of  a second, and says evenly, “I'm thirty-four.”

Pippa has no idea what answer she'd expected, or wanted, or even what made her ask the question. “Okay,” she says, after a moment.

“Is that - I know we haven't -”

“No, it's fine, I was just - forget it. Forget I brought it up.”

“Pip -”

“Really. Never mind. It's fine,” she insists, when he looks like he's going to press it.

They linger for a while over dessert and coffee, and the conversation moves on to other, safer topics, but they're off their rhythm and they both know it. Quiet in the elevator back up to the room, and when they get there she kisses him until he stops her, gently. Pulls her into his lap, in the armchair by the window. “This is tangling you up, isn't it.”

“No,” she says, knee-jerk. “Well. I haven't really thought about it? But - I guess I just -”

“Pip. Take a minute.”

She settles a little more comfortably into him and does so, takes a few seconds to mull it over. “I guess I haven't considered it, like, at length. I'm _aware_ of it, obviously, but - I dunno. Doesn't it ever bother you, the sneaking around thing?”

“Hang on, that's a whole other question,” Lin points out. A beat. “You know what I think?” he murmurs into her hair, goes on without waiting for a response. “I think you are - insatiable, for a start,” and he laughs when she smacks him, wraps a hand around her wrist. “I kid, I kid. Really, I think you are much, much smarter than you think you are. And _so_ much more... fucking mature, and together, than I could've even dreamed of being at your age. I'm serious,” he adds when she scoffs a little.

“I kind of just feel like I'm stumbling around hoping nobody notices I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing,” she admits, fidgets with his shirt collar.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“What?”

“That _doesn't go away._ ”

She laughs, already feeling a little better. “Good to know.” Another few seconds’ silence, and she considers: fifteen years and change, that's not so bad, is it. If she were fifty and he were sixty-five nobody would bat an eyelash.

He fits his fingers under her chin to tilt up, look her in the eye. “You're good?” he asks. “Anything else you want to discuss while we're here? Income tax, buying a house? You know what a Roth IRA is?”

“Shut up,” she mutters, and he takes her hand a little more firmly when she goes to swat at him again, kisses it. She catches his mouth and kisses him deep and lazy, sinks into it. That sense of things sliding into place. He gathers her up in his arms and stands, after a moment’s unsteadiness starts across the room toward the bed, kissing her all the while. “I do have one question,” she murmurs against his mouth, “is this gonna count toward my extra credit, Mr. Miranda, ‘cause I heard Anthony just had to take a test -” This dissolves into laughter when he drops her unceremoniously onto the mattress.

“God, don't make jokes like that,” he says, but there's no heat in it and he's crawling over her, knees trapping her hips.

She couldn't say how long they lie there, entangled, just making out. Eventually her tights hit the floor, and Lin's shirt. Her dress pushed down around her waist, bra unhooked but not yet off. Hands wandering. Lin leans back to admire the view, fingers splayed over her ribs, and tells her so. “You're not so bad yourself,” she says, huffs a laugh. God, he really is beautiful, his mouth damp and his hair loose. She noses at his jaw, kisses his neck, partially to hear his appreciative sigh, but mostly so she doesn't have to look him in the eye when she says, “Do you - want to -?”

She can practically hear the mild confusion in his silence, and then he shifts, sprawls out on his side and props himself up on an elbow. “Oh,” he says, “I - really?”

“If you want to,” she says hastily.

“I want to,” he assures her, smiling a little, “yeah, but. We don't have to, not if you don't, we can just -”

“I do,” she says, firmly, punctuates this with a kiss.

“Okay.” He sounds absurdly tender, and kisses her cheek, her temple, breathes her in. “I don't have stuff with me, so - there's a pharmacy a couple blocks down, I can run out. Why don't you stay here, take a shower, maybe?”

“Yeah, okay.” Lin smiles at her, gathers his shirt from the floor and his wallet from the desk. “Wait, hang on -” Pippa makes the decision in a second, digs through her bag and fishes a bill from her own wallet. Hands it to him. “You've paid for everything else,” she explains, off his look. “Just take it?”

He doesn't laugh or make fun of her or refuse it. Tucks it into his pocket and kisses her again, brief. “I'll be right back, angel.” She watches him go, and the door shuts behind him with a heavy click.

The shower turns out to be a good idea, a few minutes of moving on autopilot to breathe, take stock. She hadn't meant to spring this on him - they've talked about it, and he's always firmly held that he's fine with whatever she wants - and it's not like they came here to do this particular thing, but. It feels right, she thinks. She's nervous, though it's a good kind of nervous. Tries to dig up what she's gathered from Jas and a few of their other friends - it might hurt but it's not really supposed to, just relax. Lin will take care of her, in any case, she's sure.

She ends up staying in the shower longer than she'd planned, goes back and forth on whether or not to shave her legs and decides against it. When she steps out she has a brief anxious moment looking at the lingerie she'd bought for the occasion - what if he thinks she's trying too hard, or something - but she pushes it out. Glad she'd had second thoughts about the stockings; her hands are unsteady, couldn't have trusted herself to put them on properly. She swipes a little perfume behind her ears and on the insides of her wrists, lets her hair down.

Lin's on the bed when she comes back out, messing around on his phone. Box of condoms on the bedside table. He looks up at her and just - stares, for a second. “Uh, wow? Hi.”

“Hi.” She goes to him and he kneels up on the bed to meet her, lace her fingers with his.

“You dressed up for me,” he says, soft. And it's that tone again, mix of proud-hungry-adoring that always just makes her think about what she can do to make him keep using it.

“You like it?” He kisses her in response, smoldering. She feels _good,_ hot, exposed. Turned on. Couldn't have guessed this handful of black lace would do that. He pulls her forward onto the bed and keeps kissing her, his hands everywhere, confident but unhurried. They've got time, after all, and they end up just like they'd been earlier, legs tangled together and exchanging these endless, languid kisses.

Even just getting his shirt off again is enough to stoke her hunger, make her a little impatient. She kisses her way down his chest, his belly, familiar terrain by now. And he lets her, lifts his hips to let her pull his pants off but otherwise just lets her have her way. She takes him in her hand and then her mouth, looks up to watch him watching her and holds the eye contact as long as she can while she works down his cock; long enough to see him bite his lip, his chest heave with the sigh. This - she doesn't know that she'll ever tire of this, the solid weight on her tongue, the taste. How he always holds her hair back and tells her how good she looks, offers the odd murmured direction to pull back a little or do that again or whatever, the quiet bitten-off curse. Her jaw is just starting to ache when she swallows around him and he gets out, “baby,” a little strangled. “Give me a minute, damn,” he breathes and pulls her up to kiss her, chuckling. “When did you get so good at that.”

“I don't know, but you were there,” she points out, and that earns her a real laugh.

He returns the favor with every ounce of his usual devastating focus, the familiar determination to just take her apart. By the time he comes up to kiss her again (which she's found she likes, both of them tasting like her), she’s thrumming. Her body hollowed out, empty of anything but want and jittery anticipation, waiting. His hands on either side of her face like she's fragile.

Watching him deal with the condom once they get to it sends her into a fit of nervous laughter, which - okay. She knows she really should be paying attention, but it's like it hits her all at once, what they're doing. “What?” Lin asks, looking a little bewildered, which is adorable.

“Nothing,” she says, and her laugh turns into a pleased little hum when he runs his hands up her thighs and then settles over her again. Still holding most of his own weight but all the same a solid, undeniable presence.

“You still okay with this?”

“Yes.” And she is okay, more than okay, doesn't think she's wanted someone or something so much in her life.

“You're all tense,” he observes, and kisses her again, and again, until it melts out. Pressing her down into the mattress and she's hazy, pliant. When he finally pushes into her they're both quiet and it's slow, slow, careful - and it's a lot, it's so much - “Fucking Christ,” he mutters against her neck, sounds like he's had the breath knocked from his chest. “Okay?” He's _trembling_ with the effort of holding still in her, giving her a second to adjust, come to grips with the sensation.

“Yeah,” she tells him, “yeah. Move, fuck, fuck me,” and he does, and it's wildly, shockingly good. Wet hot slide and the firm weight of him on top of her. It's all she can do to cling to him, kiss him - more sharing air than a proper kiss, jaws slack, overwhelmed. She doesn't feel malleable now but solid and sure and grounded, and he's talking, low in her ear. How fucking incredible she feels, how tight she is, how long he's wanted this. She works a hand between them to get at her clit and - oh, that's perfect, and then he replaces her fingers with his own and that's _better._

He seems determined that she's going first even once he starts to lose his careful pace, and between the steady circles on her clit and the slick pull of him inside her it's more than enough. Her nails in his back when she comes. He doesn't stop and it's almost too much but deliciously so, raw. “You're so fucking sweet,” Lin's saying, underneath her own tiny breathless sounds, “you're so good, my good girl, fuck - _fuck -”_

“Come on, Lin,” she tells him, and again her voice doesn't seem like hers. Her body’s not hers, not right now - it's his, she's his - “come on, come,” and he lets loose this ragged low sound into her shoulder, pushes into her and stills, shuddering.

Mindful apparently of crushing her he rolls off and collapses onto his back, panting. She curls up against his side, notes with wonder and satisfaction the twinge between her legs; he makes room for her, tucks an arm around her shoulders.

She listens to his heart regain a normal pace, his breathing even out. Sweat cooling on their skin. Wonders if he's fallen asleep but then he says something she doesn't quite catch; she props her chin on his chest to look at him. “What?”

“Thank you, I said,” he repeats, quietly.

“What for?” She's not at all sure what he means. Traces her fingertips idly over his neck, shoulders.

"For that,” he says, takes her hand in his and brings it up to his lips for just a second. “Trusting me.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the poem is "Grace" by Sarah Kay, from her book No Matter the Wreckage.


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

“What time is it?”

“Fuck. Seven-ish?”

That's surprising - Pippa's at Jasmine’s and, apparently, they've stayed up all night. Just talking, giggly and punch-drunk. They haven't done this in a long time. “You think we should bother trying to sleep?” Jas asks, voice rough. The sun’s coming up.

“Probably not.” Pippa rolls over, hugs a pillow. She's just realizing how exhausted she is; at least she doesn't have to work today. Sleep-deprived and therefore devoid of filter, she's asking before she can think not to: “Jas?”

“Hm?”

“How'd you know? With Anthony.”

“What, that I loved him?” Jas turns onto her side to face Pippa, pushing her newly short hair out of her eyes, and Pippa has one of those _oh_ moments, like, _oh, this is my best friend._ “I mean,” Jas muses, considering. “I guess I knew I liked him pretty quick, but - we were making dinner at his house once and I sliced the shit out of my hand. It wasn't even that bad but I was bleeding and freaking out, right, and he just… took care of it. Like, I’m crying, panicking, and he's just - calm.”

“That's adorable, what the hell.” Pippa has to laugh at the mental image; she can see it clear as day. “I can't believe I didn't know that.”

“I know, right?” Jasmine’s smiling and she asks, teasing, “Any particular reason you're asking?”

“Just curious,” Pippa says defensively, but - well. Fuck it, she thinks. “Okay,” she goes on, “there might have been… _some_ truth to the secret-boyfriend-having accusation, after all.”

Jasmine’s face lights up. “You _bitch._ I knew it. Why didn't you say so?”

“Well, not boyfriend,” she amends hastily. “It's kind of complicated, we're not really - telling people. Like, at all.”

“It's one of those,” Jas says sagely, nodding.

Careful. “No, it's just - he's older.”

“Who is it? Do I know him?”

“You do,” Pippa admits, buries her face in the pillow for a second to take a deep breath and when she resurfaces makes herself say it. “It's Mr. Miranda.  Actually.”

Jasmine’s face goes through a series of several expressions very quickly and it might be kind of funny in other circumstances. “Bullshit.”

“Not bullshit. Extremely not bullshit.”

“Like, our English teacher.”

“Yup.” She has to laugh a little, at the profound relief of it, the weight lifting.

“How does that even happen?”

“Well, he started coming in to my work all the time, after the summer, and we just got to talking, I dunno. Kind of just snowballed.” It's such a simple explanation for what hasn't been simple at all, doesn't do justice to the whole thrilling mess of these last few months.

“Okay,” Jasmine says slowly. Chewing on it. “When did this all start?”

“He kissed me in October, so? Then, I guess. Six months.”

“Six months,” Jas echoes. Shakes her head. “Sorry, I just - I don't - are you having sex with him?”

“Yeah.” Her heart’s sinking; this isn't the reaction she'd expected, or wanted.

“Is that even - how old is he?”

That gives her pause. “Like thirty, I think? I haven't asked -”

“So, okay, hang on - you're fucking our English teacher, who's like thirty you think, and you've been keeping it a secret, not just from me, but everyone we know? Everyone he knows? That's…” And she trails off, looking unsure.

“I'm sorry, I've been wanting to tell you, but -”

“No, not even just that, I mean - all of it. It's _weird,_ Pip.Can he not find someone his own age, or what?”

“It's not like that,” she interrupts, stung. This conversation isn't going at all like she'd hoped. “It's not just sex, okay, we're…”

“You're what?” Jasmine asks, gently, but the words Pippa had been about to say die in her throat. “Oh, babe. You love him, don't you?”

“I don't know,” she confesses, “maybe?” That's the truth, at least. The look on Jasmine’s face now is unbearably tender, _poor thing,_ and it's more than she can stand. She goes on, knowing exactly how she sounds and hating it. “You don't know what it's like, he's - he makes me feel -” Wanted, hot, special, capable. She can't say any of that. “I trust him."

Jasmine’s expression makes it very clear that she doesn't. “I don't know - this seems like -”

“I'm happy,” Pippa says, stubbornly.

“Are you?” Jas counters - and Pippa’s forgotten that for all she acts like she's not, Jasmine’s uncomfortably perceptive sometimes, and they know each other better than probably anyone else.

“Whatever." And she sounds like a bitch now, she knows, deflecting. Hating the feeling that she fucked up, chose the wrong time. “I wouldn't have brought it up if I knew you'd take it like this -”

“Like what?” That's a little disbelieving, a little cool; Pippa’s struck a nerve. “How am I supposed to take it?”

“I just thought you might, you know, be happy for me? But. Whatever. Let's just - drop it.” And she gets up even though she knows it's stupid and dramatic, mutters something about needing to get home.

  
  


She ends up having to cave, a little later, and texts Jasmine: _I really need you to not tell anyone what I told you_

_it's kind of important_

She doesn't get a response, but it shows Read a few minutes later.

 

*

 

Lin’s in her room. It's weird - she hasn't been inviting him here even when they could get away with it, for reasons she's never really cared to parse. It kind of feels like crossing a line in a way the rest of their whole thing doesn't, mixing parts of her life she should be keeping separate.

She takes a second to see the room like he must be doing: lavender walls painted a decade ago, ukulele on the desk, her grandmother's quilt on the bed. Lin’s perfume and the book of poems on the dresser, and him in his too-big hoodie in the middle of it all, inspecting her bookshelf curiously. He tugs a short-story collection from its place and pages through it. “I love this one.”

“Jas gave me that, a couple years ago,” she remembers, with a pang.

“How is Jasmine?” he asks, idly.

“I wouldn't know,” she says, and the bitterness sneaking into her tone makes him look up. “We're kind of fighting, I guess.”

“What happened?” Lin asks, frowning. “You wanna talk about it?”

“She thinks you're - well. I don't know what she thinks, really. That you and I are - shouldn't be seeing each other. I told her it's not -”

“You told Jasmine about me,” Lin says, slowly. Comes to sit on the edge of the bed next to her.

“Well - yeah.” For the second time in less than a week there's that slow sinking feeling, that she's misjudged.

“What did you say, exactly?”

“That we're sleeping together,” she admits, and his jaw’s tense. “And that I was sorry for keeping it from her, but -”

“Pip,” Lin says, almost pleading. “I thought we were on the same page, here, about discretion -”

“She’s not gonna tell anyone.” She's sure it's true, but there's still that little nagging worry in the back of her mind. Even if Jas only told Anthony…

“You don't know that,” Lin says, pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, deep; she catches a muttered _fuck_ from behind his hand. “You do understand why we weren't telling people.”

“Of course I do - but I didn't tell _people,_ I told one person, and she's my best friend - I'm sorry, okay, don't be mad -”

“I'm not mad, I'm just - fuck.” She reaches for him tentatively, touches his arm, and he doesn't shrug her off but doesn't quite accept it, either. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

She's thrown, hoping against hope it doesn't mean what it sounds like he means; her stomach drops. Like missing the bottom stair in the dark; the rug pulled out from underneath her. “What?”

“I should never have let things - get - here,” he says, haltingly. Like she hasn't been here every step of the way. She tries to say so but once again the words stick in her throat - of course, now is when she loses her voice. “This - all of this,” and he's reaching, seems to be searching for words of his own. Agonizingly, she's reminded of the last time she'd seen him flounder like this: that first frantic kiss, six months and twenty feet from where they are now. “Shouldn't have happened, I should've kept my fucking distance like I was trying to do in the first place, I never should've let you… god. Fuck. I should go,” he says, but she kisses him, hard and sudden, clinging. He just needs reminding, she thinks, that all this, what they've had, has been worth it. Can't stand to hear him talk about them, about her, like this.

But he's not kissing back; he says her name and nudges her back, gently. “Don't. Come on.”

“It's okay,” she murmurs, not sure which one of them she's reassuring, and kisses him again, crawls into his lap - and for all of a second she thinks she's managing it, that she can get him on her wavelength, as he starts warming up to her by degrees, opening up - but then he makes this pained noise against her mouth and pulls back, again. Pushes her gently but firmly off of him. “Lin, wait,” she starts, but he's getting to his feet, running a nervous hand through his hair.

“No, I let this get way out of hand -” She reaches for him again, stupid, stupid, and he actually does shrug her off. Pretty definitively.

The litany of quiet protest is coming out of her mouth without her express permission - “Lin, come on, wait, let's just talk, come here, talk to me” - and it's all the more mortifying for the fact that it's not working. Not even as she's switching to apologies, telling him, “I'm sorry, okay, you're right, I shouldn't have -” She follows him out the door and down the hall, through the kitchen - hating herself, how desperate and awful she feels. “Lin - just listen to me, babe, please - don't go -”

“Pippa - god - just stop. Please.” He's got her wrists in his hands now and still gently, like she's fragile, tugs so she'll let go of her needy, pathetic clutch on the front of his sweater. There's a long, excruciating moment where they just look at each other, and he drops her hands, and then he's gone. The door doesn't quite slam behind him.

 

*

 

She's so distracted at work her next couple of shifts that Tommy actually sits her down to talk; he weathers her anxious string of apologies for about five seconds before he stops her, holds up a hand. “You're not in trouble. Sorry, I should've said.”

“I just - have things going on, and I shouldn't be bringing it here, I know -”

“Pippa,” he says, edging into fond-exasperated, and she shuts up, lets him finish. “Whatever it is - look, short of you missing shifts or causing grievous bodily harm to yourself or others, there's shit I can let slide. All I'm saying is - if there's anything I can do, don't be afraid to ask, alright? I'm not that scary.”

“Thanks, Tommy,” she gets out, with an effort, oddly touched.

When they come back into the kitchen a minute later Javi looks from one to the other, appraising, and says, “Don't let him bully you, Pip. He's all bark, no bite, trust me.”

“Watch yourself,” Tommy says, mildly. “You're not irreplaceable, you know.”

“Of course I fucking am.” Javi says it sweetly, butter wouldn't melt. Tommy reaches to pick at the bowl of blueberries meant for this batch of scones and Javi smacks him, none too gently.

“This insubordination. Do you see,” Tommy says to Pippa. “Do you see what I put up with.”

“Maybe if you paid him more, he'd respect you,” she says with all the solemnity she can muster, which isn't much.

Javi laughs outright at that. “Not enough money in the world, but I appreciate it. Now go,” this to Tommy, “I have dishes to do, and other such back-breaking drudgery for which you don't pay me nearly enough, and you are in my way. Begone. Fuck out of here.”

“Someday,” Tommy says, sighs deeply, but he goes. “Someday, I'll have employees who were not placed on this earth solely to raise my blood pressure, and I'll know peace.”

“Can't fault you for dreaming,” Pippa says.

“You're first against the wall when the revolution comes,” Javi calls after him, cheerfully.

 

*

 

Lin doesn't come in. She knows he won't but that doesn't quite stop her from wearing her hair up off her neck like he likes, the sweater he'd complimented once, his perfume.

He doesn't call, doesn't text, not once, so she doesn't either. After a while it's almost easier - she can keep her head above water. She goes to work and has dinners at home with her mom and doesn't cave, doesn't get off quietly in the night thinking about him, replacing her own hands with his. Doesn't wonder if he's doing the same. Doesn't cry.

 

*

 

Lin doesn't come in but Anthony does, once, alone. Pippa’s kind of been avoiding him by association, which on one hand is unfair and on the other is unselfish (or so she tells herself), that she doesn't want to tangle him up in this whole stupid mess any more than he already is.

So she pulls him a cappuccino and they chat and it's maybe a little stilted but fine, and then he says, “You should talk to her, you know.”

“I know,” she admits, awkwardly, “but she's so - I dunno what she told you but it was bad, okay.”

“She didn't,” Anthony says, “and it can't have been don't-talk-for-two-weeks bad. She misses you, Pip, she's just proud -”

“Wait - she didn't tell you what happened?”

“No.” He says it like it's obvious, like Pippa should know this. “Said she couldn't ‘cause you told her not to. Look, whatever’s going on - aw man, don't you fuckin’ start -” She's coming around the counter to hug him, teary-eyed and sniffling suddenly, in a strong and unexpected rush of affection. He might be a little clueless and have a tendency to put his foot in his mouth at the best of times, but he doesn't have a cynical bone in his body, and he's utterly incapable of being anything other than genuine. “I gotta deal with her crying all over me, come on, not you too,” Anthony grumbles, but he hugs her back.

 

*

 

Her phone is ringing, and she can't find it. It's her own fault; her room is a mess, given that she's been too thoroughly miserable to keep it tidy. She'd ignore it but it's probably work so she searches through her bed, pile of laundry - and digs it up from the floor on the sixth or seventh ring.

Lin's name on the screen. A moment of sheer heart-stopping panic - she should let it go to voicemail. No, what if something’s wrong, or someone's found out, or he's changed his mind - so she takes a deep breath, steeling herself, and picks up. “Hello?” One word but she sounds relatively normal, at least. Glad her mom’s not home to overhear whatever this is about to be.

There's a pause, and it stretches on. Muffled, indistinguishable noise but otherwise nothing: he's pocket-dialed her. “Lin?” she tries again, just in case. His name like steel wool on her tongue, it hurts coming out. No answer. So she ends the call.

Something snaps inside her as the screen goes black and she's leaving the house without a second thought. Late spring, early evening, and the walk is too bright, too warm to make sense next to the tattoo her heartbeat slams against her ribs.

Jasmine’s barely got the door open, has barely said hello before Pippa crumbles, folds into her arms. Jasmine takes her in without so much as a question, a second’s hesitation. The tears start coming, finally, and they don't stop for a while: these horrible raw scraping sobs that tear at her throat, all the loneliness and frustration she's been bottling up for the last few weeks without anyone to hear her out.

They curl up in Jasmine’s bed and between these draining fucking crying jags it all comes pouring out, the faucet opened all the way. All of it: that first world-tilting kiss, that first rushed fuck in the passenger seat of his car. The first night spent at Lin's, the hotel weekend, how awful she'd felt watching all the half-assed lies and excuses pile up. How gentle he'd been, too, how encouraging, how safe she'd felt. Right up to yesterday and Anthony and how she'd had to duck into the bathroom to take a minute to breathe and collect herself after he'd left. She manages an apology too, somewhere in there; it's watery and mangled but she makes her point. Jas feeds her chocolate and chimes in in all the right places, interjecting with questions and disbelief and sympathetic noises as warranted.

Eventually Pippa cries herself out, exhausted, flayed open. Jasmine sends her home threatening to castrate Lin if he tries to get in touch, which is unnecessary but appreciated all the same and Pippa tells her so. Jasmine hugs her tightly enough to hurt.

Her mom's home when she gets there. “You okay?” is her first question - of course it looks like she’s been crying, Pippa realizes.

“Kind of,” she says, which is mostly true. Curls up on the couch and her mom shifts so Pippa can rest her head in her lap. Tries for a few minutes to at least sort of pay attention to whatever movie is on TV.

“Is it a boy?”

“Yes,” Pippa admits, too tired to lie anymore. She feels very young, all of a sudden.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Do you want me to just tell you no boy on earth deserves you, daughter of mine, and then shut up about it?”

When Pippa looks up she's smiling. “Maybe the first part,” she says, huffs a laugh.

“Well, no boy on earth deserves you. A prince, or something.”

“You’d have to vet him thoroughly first, of course.”

“The application process would be extensive,” her mom agrees, solemn, and they lapse back into a long, comfortable silence.

That night before she heads to bed she surveys the room, critically: it really is a fucking mess. Clothes everywhere, half-empty glasses of water scattered over the desk, a stack of books she's started and tossed aside. She can't go to sleep like this, she decides, and sets about cleaning up. Digging rolled-up socks out from under the bed, she comes up with a handful of sheer fabric that she doesn't quite recognize for a second - oh. It's a pair of black tights, exactly the same as ten other ones she owns, except for the ragged hole torn in it. The memory - the sound of fabric ripping in a quiet car while the rain beat down and a kiss that could have drowned her, embarrassed and overwhelmed and thrilling and his hands drawing out of her what no one else ever had - it hits her sharp, visceral. Waits a moment to see if the tears will spring up again, and they don't. So she tosses the ruined handful of nylon into the trash can, and shakes off the ghosts.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, that was fun. come yell at me on tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie. 
> 
> I have no idea when the next chapters will be up. if you need anything, let me know. if anyone discourses about this, don't let me know. thanks, love you!!


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